


Practice

by Rod



Series: Practice Makes Perfect [1]
Category: CI5: The New Professionals
Genre: First Time, M/M, POV Original Character, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 09:58:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rod/pseuds/Rod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam decides that he wants to know what to do when he comes out to Chris, and seeks... professional assistance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to apologise for Danny right now. He's a cocky bastard, and he pretty much took over from the start. With considerable help from Brenda I cut him back vigorously, but he's still awfully close to a Marty Stu and unbelievably smug about it too.
> 
> Characters. Who'd have 'em?

It seemed like a perfectly ordinary job, in as much as such a thing exists. The client had sounded OK (yeah, I know, really unscientific, but you do get a feeling for people lying to you on the phone), the address wasn't too rich or too poor (both of which can be trouble in different ways), and best of all was the solid promise of no kinky stuff. Some of the guys really get off on being beaten up, some of them just do weird shit for the extra money involved, I prefer being able to stand afterwards. It's simple economics really: if the merchandise isn't presentable, I can't work.

The call comes in early enough that I can catch a bus over to the client. I'll probably end up walking back, because uncomfortable as that sometimes is, taxis cost too much and usually draw more attention than customers will put up with. I dream of getting my own motorbike, which also draws attention but is so much more stylish. Some day. When I'm made of money.

Anyway, like I was saying, I end up in front of these studio flats. Nice looking places, not exactly palatial but a damn sight better than my shoebox. Aha, I think, I've got your number, mister. You're a young City guy who can't or won't go cruising and is desperate for a shag. Very young and very desperate I hope, since that usually means better pay. I lean on the doorbell (carefully checking that it's the right one), run my hand one last time through my hair, take a deep breath and relax into a lazy smile. "Hi, I'm Danny," I say as the door opens.

My guess doesn't look too far from the mark. The client isn't as young as I'd hoped, but he is dressed in the best City Casual style — expensive shirt and slacks, no tie. He's also damn good looking, which is a blessing; I won't have to fantasise to get through the evening. In fact, I might borrow those green eyes for my fantasy face. I love eyes like that, keen and changeable, shifting colours like the sea. The rest of him isn't bad either, from the dark floppy hair to the trim body. This looks promising, which is not to say that it can't turn into a total nightmare. It has before now in this sort of situation, and the way he is carefully keeping all expression off his face is making me a bit nervous.

His face stays impassive as those penetrating eyes sweep up and down my body. I feel like I've just been strip-searched, not that my tight clothing leaves a lot to the imagination. I wonder briefly what he makes of me, the twenty-year-old rent boy he has bought for the evening. It probably doesn't matter much, and anyway his face isn't giving away anything. Still, from the way he holds himself I guess that this is a man used to getting his own way, and I start mentally preparing myself for a submissive night. It's not my favourite way, but we're way down below the level at which I can afford to be picky.

"You'd better come in then," he says, and steps aside to usher me in.

Inside, it's not hard to get my nerves under control. The apartment is... tasteful is the word I'm looking for, I think. It's neat and tidy, but full of the little touches that tell you a real person lives here. Like his clothing, nothing's cheap and nasty, but nothing's gaudy either. Expensive maybe, but not showy. Tasteful, yeah. Controlled, too. It looks like Mr Expressionless is big on self-control, which kind of begs the question as to why he'd give someone like me a call in the first place. I guess there are limits to everything, and he's reached one of his.

Mine Host sits himself down at one end of his (genuine leather) couch and gestures to me to sit at the other. Not right next to him, interesting. We're starting off with conversation, it seems. "Would you like a drink?" he asks, waving a bottle of wine at me as I comply with his previous order.

"Thank you but no," I say, trying to keep my politest relaxed expression up. I never take a drink from a client, not since Tommy... not since Tommy. He shrugs and tops up his own glass, letting his expression relax. He's obviously enjoying the wine, the bastard, but I daren't try any. Tommy wouldn't say what happened while he was drugged, but you don't throw yourself off Westminster Bridge for no reason.

If we're going to be doing conversation, it had better start soon or my imagination will get carried away. "What should I call you, sir?" I ask meekly. Note I don't ask him for his name. Lots of clients, even the regular ones, don't like the idea of me knowing their names. Silly really, I could find out easily enough if I really wanted, but it gives them an illusion of privacy.

"Sam," he says simply. One eyebrow quirks up, though. Something in my attitude or my question has intrigued him. Curious. He doesn't say any more, and the silence stretches out for a while as he studies me. I return the favour, looking him up and down as I try to figure out what he wants. I'm good at reading people — I have to be, it's saved my arse more than once — but he's very good at covering up. It takes a while, but that eyebrow and his well-concealed tenseness finally click. He hasn't done this before. He doesn't know what to do.

This usually isn't a problem. Starting with kissing works well enough for me, nature will generally take its course. This time I've got the knottier problem of taking the initiative without taking control, or at least without seeming to take control. "Sam", or whatever his name really is, will want to feel in control of what's going on, so I can't just lean over and start snogging. I have to start with the verbal foreplay he has initiated, which is definitely not my forte. Fortunately his inspection of me suggests a ploy.

"Do I look the way you expected?" I ask, trying to keep any note of coyness out of my voice. I'm trying to relax him, not seduce him. Not yet, anyway.

He seems a little surprised at the question. "Not really, no." It's my turn to do the eyebrow thing. I've got weak blue eyes, short blond hair and slightly over-large lips, wearing a leather jacket over a white vest and tight jeans. I couldn't look the part more if I had "For Hire" tattooed on my forehead.

Sam, no doubt entirely for reasons of his own and not because I'm looking slightly surprised, chooses to elaborate. "You're confident, and you're smart." I can't help it, my second eyebrow joins the first. "You've come into my place without the slightest hesitation, which takes confidence, and you've been planning since you sat down."

"Oh." It seems like he's good at reading people too. Most people I've met aren't. Then again, most people I've met are clients who are too busy projecting their own little fantasies to pay any attention to the meat that's actually in front of them. "You get to be confident, I mean you have to be confident if you're around for any length of time, otherwise you don't get the work. But smart?" Me? If I was smart, would I really be selling my body to earn a crust? Or is he just trying to get my guard down with compliments?

Amusement radiates from him. "I know when I'm being looked over. You've been trying to work out how to manipulate me." There's no sting to his words, as if he found the concept too silly to take offence at. Cocky bastard.

"Kind of. But probably not for the reasons that you're thinking of." I have to give him a small victory, but I'll be damned if I'll let him have all of it.

"Oh? Do go on." His eyes have narrowed, and it suddenly occurs to me that I'm trying to unsettle a control freak. This is stupid, but I can't think of a way to back out. So much for being submissive. Oh well, he did say I was confident, let's try feeding him some more of that.

"Well, you struck me as the sort of person who likes being in control." I gesture round at the neat and tidy lounge, and Sam nods. "But you haven't done this before," and this time I gesture at myself and rush on, "which presents something of a problem."

He laughs a little ruefully, which is about the best result I could expect. "See, I said you were smart." Which leaves me wondering what he's after again, but what the hell, he's the client. "So have you come up with any solutions?"

"Um. Not really. Do you know what you want to do?" I'm thinking furiously despite my light tone. Somehow or other I've got to figure out what he wants when he doesn't know himself.

"Now, no. Eventually... everything?"

I give him a little smirk at that. "Let's leave 'eventually' alone for now, though you should know that there are places I don't go." I give a little shudder, as much for his benefit as out of genuine distaste.

He looks down to his wine glass, then back to me. "Ah. I see." No, I doubt very much that you see, Mr Sam, but I'll leave you that illusion too.

"How about we start off small and see where it goes?"

"That sounds reasonable." He hesitates, and I finally figure out how to handle this. Play it like the Question Game, Danny. Phrase every suggestion as a question that he can say yea or nay to. That puts everything back under his control.

"Could I just hold you, just to start?" My voice is quieter and more uncertain now, back to submissive mode. It isn't entirely an act, but Sam spots my aim all the same. I'm trying to relax him, forgetting that he's sharp enough to spot me trying, so it isn't too surprising that he tenses instead. "It's the smallest thing I can think of!"

Sam smiles a small smile, one that doesn't reach his eyes, and puts his glass down. "OK, let's try that," he says, visibly trying to relax. Oh well, softly softly catchee monkey, or something like that. I slide towards him on the couch, trying to make my movement as open and obvious as possible. He's still nervous, unsurprisingly, so when I reach him all I do is loop my arms loosely around his waist and rest my head on his chest. Completely non-sexual, completely non-threatening — in fact it puts Sam in the position of protecting me. It takes him a moment to figure out what to do with his arms, then he hugs me to his body, rocking gently.

This is nice. Truth be told, I like being held. It reminds me of simpler times, of being loved rather than fucked. No one has just held me like this since, well, forever. I close my eyes and relax into the warmth, listening to Sam's heartbeat slow down.

"Danny?"

"Mmm?"

"Your jacket."

"Mmm?"

"It's digging in all over the bloody place!"

Oh. I stifle a giggle as I pull back a little, but I'm sure Sam will see my eyes dancing. I can certainly see the glint in his, despite his martyred expression. "Sorry," I say, attempting to look at least a little bit contrite. "Shall I take it off, or would you like to?"

Sam's eyes widen. "Me?" The squeak would be funny if I wasn't abruptly worried about him getting panic-stricken and throwing me out.

"Kind of like practice? Touching me without sex getting involved." Yet.

"Um." Sam isn't really convinced, but he's got this determined look on his face. I'm not sure this is a good idea but when I stand, all the better to shuck my jacket, Sam keeps his hands on my shoulders and rises with me. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, staring into his eyes. I want to trust those eyes, so it's not hard to let him take control.

He is surprisingly gentle as he slips the jacket off my shoulders. Gravity does the rest. He seems to like what he sees; my singlet doesn't leave much to the imagination, and I work out at the gym enough to have well defined muscles all over. Hell, sometimes it seems like that's where most of my money goes, keeping the merchandise up to scratch. Most of my clients comment on it one way or another. Sam just looks me over, gives another of those little smiles that doesn't reach his eyes, and nods approvingly. I concentrate on projecting trust.

He leans in to start kissing, and since he's an inch or two taller than me he's well and truly in charge, bending me back slightly as he presses me close. I was going to go back to holding him again, but if this is what he wants, do what the client says. Reaching round to hug him back, I'm suddenly dubious that it is what he really wants. I can feel the muscles of his back through his shirt, and they are like slabs of granite he's so tense. I knead my hands up and down his spine and shoulders, trying to work the tension loose, but I might as well be massaging a mountain for all the good it does.

Sam takes an unintentional cue from me and starts running his hands up and down my flanks, still kissing me hard. This is a turn-on, but his movements are so rigidly controlled, so tense, that I redouble my efforts to relax him. I have to stop as he pulls off my vest in a single smooth movement, forcing my arms over my head. The sensation of the rough fabric over my nipples is arousing, as it was meant to be, and I moan despite myself. I even forget myself far enough to attack his shirt buttons. That's supposed to be under his control, but I want the skin contact and not just to try to blot out his tension.

When we come back together again, Sam's lips move away from mine and start down my neck. Christ, he's good at this, licking and kissing that patch below my ear until I'm practically writhing against him. I don't get this often. Even the clients who want to blow me rather than the other way round tend to be pretty perfunctory in their haste to get to the main event. Anyway, that's my excuse for being so out of it that I don't notice the state that Sam's getting into. I mean, I can feel his back muscles getting tenser and tenser despite my hands, and his breathing getting more and more ragged, but it isn't until I feel something damp on my shoulder that it actually registers with me that something is wrong.

Somehow I manage to pull away from him a little, holding him at arm's length. Don't ask me how I did it, my body's not terribly co-operative at the moment and if Sam had put any effort into keeping me close I'd have had to have concentrated a whole lot harder. He didn't though. He's practically locked himself solid with tension; his face is screwed into a grimace with another tear following the first down his cheek, his hands are shaking with the effort of holding on to himself, and the tendons in his neck are standing out like steel hawsers.

"I can do this," he grates out, eyes squeezed closed. "I _will_ do this."

"You _will_ burst a blood vessel if you don't calm down!" I snap back. I'm too busy trying to get my own breathing under control to remember that he's in charge. Hell, he isn't in charge of himself right now, maybe I'm doing the best thing for him. "Come on," I say more gently, "sit down here." His legs buckle, and I have to lower him to the couch. Once we're seated, I hold him close, this time with his head against my chest. Then the dams burst, and I simply stroke him gently as the sobs wrack him.

I'm pretty upset myself. I'm a professional, damn it, I'm supposed to play a part for my clients, not let them tangle me up. I keep striving for that inner indifference that's normally so easy to achieve, but every time I look down I see Tommy's face superimposed on Sam's. I can't help it, he's just hitting too close to home. You see, Tommy was the last person I comforted like this. And once he had stopped crying, the one man I've ever truly loved walked out of my life and off a bridge.

I can't let that happen again, not even to someone I've only known for ten minutes. I couldn't live with myself.

It's a while before Sam restores some semblance of self-control. He pulls away from me with a ragged sigh, but I don't let him get far. My grip has loosened so that we can look at each other, but I'm not letting go. Not yet. He's worth looking at, mind you. His body is taut and fit, even more so than mine, but there are scars here and there that tell another story. Something in the back of my mind starts worrying about what he has done to collect those marks, but the rest of me is intent on the face that hasn't quite managed to hide his emotions again.

"Well, that was a total fiasco," he says, carefully not looking at me.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. You are one hell of a kisser." That earns me an amused snort. Emboldened, I tilt his head so that I can see him properly. "Want to talk about it?"

Sam's head goes down again. "No," he says in a flat, final voice.

I could push, but this is Mr Control Freak I'm talking to here. Talking will have to be his idea.

"OK. Mind if I talk?" Taking his grunt as assent, I start talking about Tommy. My Tommy. About how he always talked about finding the right rich widow who would leave him all her money. About how one flash of those bottle-green eyes in that plump cherubic face turned everyone (no, don't say it was me) to mush. About the night when, desperate for money, he took the job that everyone knew was dodgy, accepted a drink from his client... and was multiply raped, beaten and mutilated for someone else's pleasure. "When they were done with him, early in the morning, they bundled him into a car and dumped him in the streets. He had to stagger home. He could barely stand but no one... _no one_ lifted a finger to help. 'The little faggot got everything he deserved,' was all anyone said." I'm well aware that my voice is getting harsh, but I'm having to force the words out. Tommy never hurt any of them. Why couldn't they have helped him?

"When he got home, I put him to bed. I held on to him for hours until he finally cried himself to sleep. Then I went out to get what I could to ease the pain, buy all his favourite foods, even one of those trashy romance novels he loved. I was going to pamper him until he was better. Except that by the time I got back, he'd gone. They... they fished his body out of the river that evening. He'd jumped." I furiously knuckle the tears out of my eyes. I am bloody well not going to start blubbering now. Instead I stare straight into Sam's eyes. "So you'll have to excuse me if I don't believe you when you say you're OK."

Sam reverses our positions, hugging me to his chest now. "It's all right, I'm not going to do anything like that. I've...." You've what exactly, I think. Been through worse than Tommy? I somehow doubt it, Mr City Slicker. "I know some of what you've been through." Oh yeah? I pull back a little, so he can talk to me rather than over my shoulder. He looks, well, embarrassed almost.

"It's complicated. I don't normally do things like this."

I can't help smiling. We've been over this ground. "I'd never have guessed."

"Yes well. The reason I called... oh the hell with it, I'm in love."

If he's looking for a reaction from me, he doesn't get one. "With?" I hate to keep prodding him, but this conversation is beginning to feel like pulling teeth.

"A man I work with." He sighs. "Of course he's about as straight as they come, but then so was I. We're... we've got a difficult job. Dangerous, sometimes. A few days ago, I thought he was dead. He'd gone missing... I had reason to believe... Oh, it doesn't matter why. I knew I... cared about him, watching out for each other is one of the things we have to do. It's just that waiting for him, knowing there was nothing I could do, it just tore me apart.

"I don't let people close. It isn't smart when the job could kill you." I nod, knowing exactly what he means. "But somehow or other Chris went through all my defences like a hot knife through butter. The worst of it is he wasn't even trying."

"Could you tell me about him?" If I'm being a fantasy fuck tonight, it'll go better if I know what this 'Chris' is like.

"Oh God, where do I start? About your height, blue eyes, short spiky brown hair, dimples..." He sighs, and I silently apologise. I don't do dimples, my face just doesn't crinkle that way. "He's also the untidiest man I've ever met, bossy as all hell and couldn't cook to save his life. He rushes into everything with both feet leaving me to pick up the pieces, he won't listen to a thing I tell him, and there's still no one I'd rather have at my back. He's maddening. If I didn't love him, I'd have to kill him!"

Woah Nelly. At the rate that all came out I'm in no doubt that my client has a severe case of lurve here, but it doesn't square with his earlier reactions. He doesn't sound like he's got serious homophobia to overcome. Unless...

"OK," I say, and lean over and plant a small kiss on his cheek. He tenses up almost immediately, which doesn't auger well for a relationship with someone as impulsive as he described. "Now I know why you were trying so hard you nearly gave _me_ a heart attack, but I don't understand why it was so hard on you."

His face goes icy for a moment, making me more confident of my guess. I watch him force himself to relax and make his decision. "It was years ago, in a different job. Before I met Chris. I've never told anyone—"

"Then don't tell me," I interrupt. He doesn't need this made any harder. "I can guess, but I don't need to know." He's been raped, I'd bet anything. If I had any doubts, the gratitude on his face would put me straight. I feel for him, I really do. There have been times when the things clients have done with me have been only one step away from rape, and I'm one of the lucky ones. I've felt so dirty that I sat in the bath until I was shivering with cold, and then I've gone back out and sold my body again because it was that or starve. Sam doesn't have that imperative, and I don't know how to help him get past his problem.

"It's ironic, really," Sam says with a forced little laugh. "I want to make love to Chris so badly, but when I try to learn how..." He breaks off in frustration.

"Oooh." Light dawns, finally. "I've been barking up the wrong tree entirely." He's not after a fantasy here, he's looking for lessons. I grin, trying not to make it look too wicked. "You don't need sex at all, you need company!"

"What?" His face is a picture, and I can't resist prodding him to reinforce my point.

"You need to learn to relax with someone right here next to you, just doing nothing in particular." Well, cuddling really, but you don't have to know that. "Anything else we can talk about. Particularly the sex."

"I'm not sure putting it off is the answer."

"It isn't. I meant talking about making love to a man, what it's like, what you can and can't do, everything short of actually doing it."

"Oh." It's Sam's turn to work it out and grin. "You make it sound like such hard work."

"It will be. The test afterwards will be a real doozy!"

So we sit and we talk. It takes a long time before Sam stops twitching when I touch him, and I make sure I touch him "accidentally" a lot. We mostly avoid talking about sex, but by the time we're done we have worked out exactly how to set the world to rights. I can't remember exactly how any more, but the eradication of tuna and mayonnaise baguettes was the starting point. It's only when Sam yawns that I think to check the clock.

"Christ, it's gone midnight!"

Sam rubs his eyes. "Shit, and I'm on a 6:30 start. Sorry Danny, but I've got to throw you out now. Should I call you a cab?"

"I've been called worse. Nah, I think I'll walk. I could do with the fresh air." I pull on my vest and grab my jacket. "Thanks for the evening, it's been... different."

"You don't say. That reminds me..." He digs around in his pocket and pulls out a bundle of bank notes. My usual fee, plus a twenty quid tip. I look at it like it was about to bite me.

"Sam, I couldn't! I didn't do anything."

"Oh yes you did." He stuffs the notes in my hand and holds me briefly, touching nose to nose. "You came here to do a job. If it turned out to be different work to what you and I both thought, it doesn't matter. Besides, I can afford it and you can't."

He's right. I cave in, though my conscience is none too happy with me. "All right, but only on the understanding that next time I don't charge for chat. Uh, assuming there is a next time?"

"I think that's a fairly safe bet." He grins at me, and I grin back as I head for the door. "Danny, you're welcome here, any time I'm in."

I don't know what to say to that. I know I've got this stupid grin plastered on my face, and he seems to take that as answer enough, so I just wave and close the door behind me. I've got a spring in my step as I start the long walk home, and for once I'm not just putting on an act. The world really does seem like it's got a point again. I haven't just sat and talked and fooled about and generally had a friend in, well, it seems like forever. It seems that there is more out there than just work and clubbing, which is kind of like work but quicker and with more alcohol.

Yeah, the nasty little pessimist in the back of my head comments, I've managed to turn a client into a friend. Brilliant business move, bucko. Another potential source of income down the drain.

Fuck that. I reckon I needed our chat as much as Sam did, and that's something money can't buy you.


	2. Chapter 2

I end up seeing Sam several times in the next couple of weeks. That's not as indulgent as it sounds. No one ever manages to work every night, heck, I couldn't handle that many clients, and several evenings everything's done and dusted by nine. Usually on such nights I have a shower and head out to the clubs, but now sometimes I head round to Sam's instead.

I think it helps Sam that I sometimes initiate contact, rather than him phoning me. It certainly helps me; when I'm imposing on him, there's never any question of payment. When he calls me over, he always feels obliged to try. That was the source of our one serious argument to date. Sam tried telling me I couldn't afford not to take the money once too often, and I lost it. I told him I wanted a friend, not a sugar daddy, and stormed out. When he phoned the following night, the very first thing he did was apologise. He sounded so uncertain, so unlike the reserved and controlled man I'd come to know, that I went round straight away and work be damned. We spent a long time just holding each other that night, him apologising for his pushiness and me for my temper.

Pay or no pay, I still make sure that Sam's education is furthered at some point each evening. He needs to get used to the whole idea, and gradually he gets less fazed and less tense as time goes on. He'll probably never get used to the ease with which I whip out my tackle to illustrate some point or other, but that's hardly a major problem. It's easy for me, I'm used to thinking of my body as an object, but most people are too self-conscious to be comfortable with the whole idea.

The main thing that helps me in my self-imposed task is Sam's curiosity. He wants to know. He really wants to do the best he possibly can for his Chris once he finally admits his feelings for him. I use that shamelessly, making occasional references to techniques so that Sam ends up asking me. That way he stays in control of the bits of our discussions that make him most nervous, but I make sure that they happen all the same. It gives him confidence in the conversation, and my matter-of-fact, non-sensual descriptions are supposed to make the subject matter less charged and more ordinary than his particular problem would paint them.

He still surprises me, like tonight when he asks me outright about anal sex. I'd been avoiding the subject since I realised it was going to be very difficult for him, and besides from what I hear a real relationship has to be going for a while before the people in it play that sort of game. Not that I'd know, of course, never having been in anything like a real relationship. So anyway I'm caught a bit on the hop when he simply looks at me and says "So what's it like, taking someone up the arse?"

I think it amuses him that I'm the one to squirm for once. I'm just aware that I haven't prepared for this, and if I screw up I could stuff his love-life badly. I have to be honest and straightforward like I always am with him, and hope for the best.

"I don't usually get to do it," I sigh. "Most of my clients prefer to fuck rather than to be fucked. Then again most of my clients are sad gits, as I think I've mentioned before."

"No more than once an hour."

"Well there you go. It's a good feeling, though, worth the trouble. Being wrapped in tight heat, watching him go crazy as you hit his prostate... you can't get physically closer to someone. If you're emotionally close you have the added benefit of seeing that you are giving pleasure as well as receiving it."

"How so?"

"You've got to bear in mind that I'm talking about going into someone who's properly prepared here. When your partner is really relaxed, he won't be in pain when you enter him. Well, nothing to write home about anyway, and it gets obliterated in the rush he'll get when you press on his prostate gland. The only thing is, you do have to get the preparation right."

"So how do I prepare him?" Sam's voice is calm and even, but I'm sitting far too close to miss the tension in his body.

"Ta da!" I whip a small tube of lube out of my jacket pocket and present it like a prize. "Lubrication. In a pinch spit will do, but this stuff's better."

Sam does the eyebrow thing.

"Your anus is not a naturally slick orifice, like, well, everything else," I say in my best lecturing tone. "If you don't apply some extra lube, you're simply not going to get in there, which is going to be pretty unpleasant for both parties."

Sam looks at the tube like it was some particularly pretty but vicious insect. "So I just slap this stuff on before I... before I..."

"Just?" I fake pained amusement for him. "There's no 'just' about it. Getting your partner slick can be erotic all on its own, and like I said you have to do it right or you won't get him relaxed. Or her," I add reflectively, "a lot of women seem to like it too."

I try to explain how to prepare someone, but I know I don't do a terribly good job. I know what to do well enough, but I know it in tactile terms, in my fingers and my arse, and I can't really get across to Sam just what it will feel like, what feedback he will get to tell him to slow or speed up. While I would hesitate to describe what is needed as a delicate touch, there is certainly skill involved and I am acutely aware that he isn't going to acquire it from a lecture.

"That didn't make any sense at all, did it?" I ask.

"No, it's not a problem. I get the general idea."

He is far from convincing, and we both know it. I sigh. I've run out of options. "Sam, that's not enough. I know you don't want to be fumbling about when you and Chris finally do it, and my spiel isn't enough to get you there. The only thing I can think of is for you to try it out."

Sam has got used to me being honest to the point of bluntness with him — he reads me too well for anything else to be sensible — but this is more than he can immediately handle. "I said it was OK," he says defensively.

I just look at him levelly. I don't need to say another word, he knows that I'm right. It doesn't take long before his eyes drop in an admission of defeat.

As I loosen my belt, he puts one hand on mine to stop me. "You don't have to do this, you know."

"I know. But you need it, so I choose to." I get one of his rare real smiles in response, which is encouragement enough even with the apprehension lurking there. "Hey," I say to lighten his mood, "you don't think I do this for just anyone, do you?"

It's not long before my trousers are down and out of the way, while I'm watching Sam nervously coat his fingers in lube. It's funny, it does feel different doing it with — for — a friend. With clients, I fake anticipation and enjoyment, but I don't really feel anything much. It's just a job. For Sam, I'm actively nervous. It's not really sexual, as such; he's attractive, but I know he's claimed and I really don't want to hurt him by messing with that. It's just that he's a friend, and this is important for him. Screwing up isn't going to cost me money, it's going to cost him dearer than that, and for some reason that matters to me a lot more.

"OK, the key is to go slow and gentle. Just let your finger trace around the rim to start with, a lot of people seem to like that." There is a moment's pause as Sam complies, then I add "Oh. I see why. Nng. No, keep going, that's really good!" It takes me a couple of deep breaths before I refocus on the job at hand, and manage to tense myself up again. "Good. Now try probing in gently. Gently, I said!"

"Sorry."

"It's OK, it's my own fault. Feel that ring of muscle there?"

"Yes, it's rock solid."

"That's because I've tensed up about as much as I can. If your partner feels like that, you might as well give up because you aren't going to get anywhere. He's too nervous or something and you have to get him relaxed before you can go any further. Hang on a second while I relax here." A couple of slow breaths, and my body reacts the way that the years have trained it. "That's better. Try again, it should be easier now. Yes, that's right. Ease in slowly, making sure I get good and slick. Good. You're trying to relax me and tease me open wider. Very good, just keep doing that. It'll be harder work when you do it for real, I'm too... Oh!"

"Sorry! What did I—"

"Don't be," I pant. "That was my prostate you just touched. Remember where it is, you'll want to be brushing it occasionally to stimulate me. Just let me catch my breath." I'm still seeing stars, so it takes me a moment to get my brain back in gear. Sam doesn't help by continuing to probe and brushing that magic spot again. At least his touch is more gentle this time, as he maps the interior of my body. "OK," I eventually manage, "you can feel I'm good and loose? It's time to put your middle finger in too. Yeah, like that, that's good. Oh. Yeah. Steady motion, that's it. Keep stretching me, scissor your fingers apart. Good. Oh." I have to stop talking again to let my brain catch up, which takes a while. "Keep going. Just getting... hard to talk here." That should win the Understatement Of The Year prize. "When you think... you've got room... try three." Sam leaves it a bit late, but when it finally arrives his third finger reduces me to dribbling incoherence. All the old familiar urges overcome me; I want him in me, completing me, and I can't stand the wait any longer. "Enough. Please."

I'm not sure where I got the will to say that. For a moment I am desolate as Sam withdraws, then I turn to face him and am puzzled that it's Sam and not Tommy. Fortunately my mouth is way ahead of my brain. "Then you... ease your... prick in... and go for it."

"Are you OK, Danny?" I must look a sight. Sam has a peculiar mixture of concern and awe on his usually impassive face, which would have me pleased if I was in any condition to think straight.

"Fuck, yes," I pant, regaining some power of speech. "It just never occurred to me that being well prepped and not following through would be such a bastard."

"I could—"

"No, I'll be OK in a minute, I just have this massive hard-on to get under control." I take a couple of deep breaths, trying to relax. Sam wordlessly hands me his wineglass, and I down it unceremoniously without even considering my unbreakable rule. Sam's a friend, and apparently I trust him. I mean I knew I trusted him, but I didn't know my subconscious trusted him. That's a bit scary, really.

Think about it for a minute. I've stayed alive and working because fundamentally I don't trust anyone. Oh, I have friends, people I go clubbing with, but in a pinch I know that they'd sell me out if there was enough of an advantage for them in it. Paranoid, I know, but it's true, particularly since if the positions were reversed I know I wouldn't hesitate long before selling them out. It's different with Sam. I couldn't sell him out, the idea's just offensive. I don't know why that should be, but it is. I don't believe he'd sell me out either, it seems. I do trust him with my life.

Cool.

Sam gives me a slightly disgusted look, at least as much as he can manage at the moment, and gets up. I'm not thinking straight, like I said, and I wonder if I've pushed him too far. Speech being difficult, I try to stand to follow and apologise when I've stopped wheezing like an asthmatic steam engine. It's at this point that I discover that my trousers are still around my ankles, and by the time I've pulled them back up and got myself back in order, Sam has returned with another wine glass.

"If you're finally going to appreciate a good wine, we might as well both have glasses," he says. His words are light, but he's got that small, shy smile that only normally appears when he's talking about Chris. I'm flattered.

"I'm more of a lager man normally," I admit, "but I really needed that. Thanks."

Sam makes a small 'it was nothing' gesture. "Next time, try not to quaff, OK?"

"OK. So what did you say this stuff was?"

That earns me a really disgusted look. "This stuff, as you so delicately put it, is a rather fine Chablis." It's Sam's turn to go into lecture mode now, educating me in the ways of wine. The practical side of his course is somewhat more relaxed than mine was, which is probably a good thing, though we do get through several bottles in the remainder of the evening. I know I'll suffer for it tomorrow; I'm not that good at holding my drink, but for now it's a good, quiet way to celebrate a friendship.

I am sitting here, with nothing better to do than talk and drink with a real friend. Life doesn't get much better than this.


	3. Chapter 3

The police pick a truly awful day to come for me.

I am not naturally a morning person, largely because I work at nights, but I am having a particular bad time today. I'd been round to see Sam the previous evening, but I'd ended up cutting it short (by which I mean I left before midnight) because I was feeling uncomfortable with the whole situation. I walked home the long route because I wanted to clear my head and figure out what was up with me.

It didn't take long to find the reason. I was falling for Sam.

It was just as well that I was passing a park bench when the realisation hit me. I had to sit down as I assessed the full extent of my stupidity. For the first time in, well, a long time I had a friend, someone I could trust with the things I wouldn't dream of telling anyone else, and I was hitting on him. That could have been OK if a bit foolish, but Sam loved someone else and I knew that. I wanted him, but I couldn't have him without wrecking his life.

I'm good at introspection. My way of dealing with life has always been to lock things away while I put on a play for the world (usually a client) so that I can examine them later in private. I've got to know me quite well over the years. I knew full well that I was only getting infatuated with Sam because he was consistently showing me friendship and kindness, and I'd been starved of both for so long that I was confusing them with love. Knowing that didn't make it any easier to figure out what to do.

The obvious approach would be to stop seeing Sam. The only trouble was, that wasn't going to work. He'd want to know what was going on when I kept being busy when he invited me over, he was sharp enough to notice that. He'd definitely spot it if I stopped turning up on his doorstep off my own bat. Besides, there was his education in erotica to consider. He still had a lot to learn about making Chris happy, though if I were being honest with myself I'd have to admit that he could figure it out for himself now.

It took a lot of sitting, walking and generally kicking around to come to the reluctant conclusion that I'd probably have to tell Sam at some point. It would be a while before I'd be able to accept emotionally what I knew intellectually, and Sam was too smart for me to successfully pretend that I was OK while I wasn't. He might not ask, in fact we usually went to some pains to avoid pushing each other, but Sam would notice if I was moping and might try something to cheer me up. That would only make matters worse, which he would notice and either blame himself or figure it out. It didn't really matter which, neither of them were appealing outcomes.

With such happy thoughts whizzing around my brain, I went home. I slept exceptionally badly, which partly explains why I feel distinctly surly when the thunderous knocking wakes me some time around 8 am. "Daniel Thurlow?" a voice bellows.

"Yeah, yeah, keep your hair on. I'm coming." Since I'm not quite feeling unpleasant enough to answer the door in the nude, I pull on a pair of jogging pants once I have struggled out of bed. Opening the door, I greet my visitors with a charming "What the fuck do you want at this ungodly hour?" before realising that they are policemen. Bloody brilliant. That should ensure that whoever has complained to them this time about my wicked ways has the satisfaction of seeing me cool off in the cells for a day or two.

"Enough of the lip, sonny," says the older of the pair, who I am already mentally calling Dumb and Dumber. "You're coming down to the station with us to answer a few questions."

You really do get all your dialogue off the TV, I think to myself, and by some heroic effort fail to say it out loud. Instead I settle on saying "Oh well, I'd better get dressed then." Since they have annoyed me and I'm in a bad mood to start with, I decide to play with their heads a bit and shuck my trousers as I pad across the room in a hunt for clothing. Young PC Dumb goes a quite gratifying shade of pink and turns away, so I turn the screw a bit more. Pulling on my favourite blue T-shirt but still naked from the waist down, I ask him, "Do I get to know what I'm being hauled in for this time?"

He falls for it, looking back before hastily averting his eyes. "Sergeant Seaton wants a word."

Well, well, my favourite nemesis on the force, how unsurprising. DS Seaton is forever pulling me in for one thing or another. I don't think he likes gays, which makes rent boys like me completely beyond the pale. He was one of the ones who didn't give a flying fuck when Tommy died, and I'm never likely to forgive him for it. He must have had a particularly boring night or a really severe bollocking to have sent round for me now. I chew this over a bit as I dress, but I can't think of anything in particular that I've done. I guess I'll just have to see how it goes.

"Any chance of stopping long enough for a coffee?" I ask brightly. PC Dumber looks at me stonily, confirming that today is not a good day for snowflakes in hell. "Come on guys," I wheedle, "it's not like I'm going to make a break for it or anything like that. You know where to find me. Any time." I positively purr the last bit, and PC Dumb goes even more pink. Fascinating, I didn't think that was possible. I'll have to make a point of looking him up on his beat.

"DS Seaton wants to see you _today,_ " I am informed haughtily. "Count yourself lucky we let you get dressed."

"Oh I don't know," I say, draping a friendly arm round them as they escort me out. "It might be fun running the sweepstake on just how long it took him to die of apoplexy."

Down at the station, it's all a bit peculiar. Seaton is in a foul mood but seems almost happy to see me, and not in a good way. I try one last pathetic plea for coffee, but even the puppy dog eyes only make him grin harder. This is bad, and I haven't a clue why, which is worse. The only thing that I can think to do — I haven't had any coffee yet, as I might have mentioned once or twice — is to carry on playing cocky and see what comes up.

When Seaton's cronies haul me into the interview room, there's a stranger already there. Spiky lightish hair, maybe a shade taller than me, deep blue eyes, mobile angular face currently set to 'scowl', and radiating enough menace to scare schoolchildren at fifty paces. Not my type at all. Also, interestingly, he's dressed more casually than our wunnerful plain clothes policemen are usually allowed, or at least have the fashion sense for. Someone special or an outsider, then. That's worrying. What have I done now?

Seaton turns on the recorder and does the usual preliminary stuff, getting me to state my name and address for the record and so on. Then he sits down and smiles beatifically. At least I assume that's what he meant to do, smiles don't really go with his face. "So Mr Thurlow," he says. This is really bad. Seaton calls me 'Danny boy' under most circumstances, it being his limited idea of a joke, so the exaggerated politeness must mean that he thinks he has me bang to rights. "Would you tell us where you were at eleven o'clock last night?"

I was at Sam's, just about, but I'm not telling Seaton that without a bloody good reason. "Why? No, don't tell me, let me guess. Somebody saw a blond-haired youth in a leather jacket mugging a little old lady and you thought of me. I'm touched."

That riles Seaton nicely, which is probably stupid but I haven't had enough caffeine to care. It's the stranger who gets in first, though. "Just answer the question, you dumb fuck," he snaps, leaning forwards to intimidate me some more. That earns him a nasty chuckle from Seaton, who has probably filed the joke away for future use.

It takes a moment for the obvious to sink in. "Hey," I say in a rare display of brilliance. "You're American."

"Smart guy."

"So what the hell are you doing in a British police station?"

"This," says Seaton with a truly malicious grin on his face, "is Mr Keel of CI5."

"If that was supposed to faze me, it would probably have worked better if I had the faintest idea who CI5 were. I'm a dumb fuck, remember?"

"International criminal investigations," Keel says in that annoying accent, reminding me to push my dislike of him up a notch or three. I really hate Americans. They're loud, pushy, arrogant, legalistic and bad tippers. I can forgive everything except the last bit. "We're very interested in what you've done." An international bunch interested in me? I'd be flattered if I weren't terrified. Keep the play going, Danny, it's all you've got to hide behind.

"You know, I think Mr Thurlow doesn't want to tell us where he was," Seaton rumbles. Too bloody right, I think. I know exactly what you'll say if I do, Seaton, we dance this little dance every time you haul me in. "I think that's because he was in Northampton Street right after he murdered Jeremy Crane!"

Murder? Eep!

"You've been watching too many TV shows, Seaton."

Think, Danny, who in God's name was this Crane guy and why would anyone place me in Northampton Street? Oh.

"And your witnesses need to learn how to read a clock. I was in Northampton Street, but that was nearer to midnight. At eleven I was still with a friend."

"Oh yes, and how much did this 'friend' pay you."

I sigh, and transfer a few coins from one pocket to another. Keel gives me an irritated look, so I paste on a disappointed smile and explain.

"I bet myself he'd actually ask how much I charged. Can't win 'em all."

"I don't suppose that this friend would be willing to vouch for you?" Keel asks in a voice dripping with sarcasm. I could really get to dislike him.

"Folks like him don't have friends," says Seaton.

I've had enough of this. "I'm not giving you any more details until I've okayed it with my friend precisely because of reactions like that," I fairly explode, "and for your information Sergeant, just because you don't have any friends is no reason to think the rest of us don't either!"

Whatever response Seaton was going make — and I'm fairly sure it included a slap to the face — is lost when the door opens and Sam walks in. He does a minute double-take on seeing me. I'm pretty sure no one else would have noticed, but I know Sam well enough by now to catch the little expressions. I can only hope that my own reaction, rapidly suppressed as it was, was mistaken as flinching from Seaton's raised hand.

"Mr Curtis entered the interview room at 08:47," Seaton growls at the recorder, and it suddenly occurs to me that we never did exchange surnames. I certainly didn't tell him mine, and if he told me his I'd forgotten it. I can't even remember if his name is on his doorbell. We started off with the professional anonymity of christian names, and became friends without the usual social introduction stuff.

I do some fast thinking. 'Mr Curtis' is clearly with Mr Keel from the way he moves straight to his side, so Sam must also work for CI5. Dangerous job, yes I guess that counts. Oh, wait a minute. Sam _works_ with this Keel guy. He must be Chris. The bastard never mentioned that the light of his life was an _American!_

"For those who haven't been following this exciting drama," I say facetiously, "I've been accused of murder and have stated that I was with a _friend_ at eleven o'clock, and that furthermore they aren't getting any more details until said friend agrees to it."

Sam nods, taking in my glare at Seaton as I emphasised the word 'friend' and letting me know he understands the ball is firmly in his court. I relax a bit; I know I can trust him. If he needs to keep our friendship quiet, he'll find some other way to get me off this.

"We're supposed to believe that you and your friend sat up half the night talking about poetry or whatever—"

"Actually," I say, interrupting Seaton for the hell of it since I now have an ally in the room, "it was more like the relative merits of a good Shiraz and Stella Artois, West Ham's chances of finishing in the top five, and the latest Andy McNabb." And some of the more unlikely erogenous zones I've come across. "Oh, and how to disarm a banana-wielding maniac."

"Whatever, and—"

"Knife-wielding maniac," Sam corrects firmly.

"Whatever," says Seaton a little more loudly.

I can't resist the temptation to wind up Seaton some more. "In my admittedly limited experience, I had not previously believed knives to be yellow and squishy."

Seaton looks about ready to explode when Sam drops his own perfectly timed bombshell. "Well, I was hardly going to demonstrate with the real thing, was I?"

I have to resist the urge to cheer. Sam has come through for me. I also have to admit that Chris is much faster on the uptake than Seaton. Then again, jellyfish are faster on the uptake than Seaton, so that's not saying much.

"You know this guy, Sam? And you didn't say?" Chris is not a happy camper, which is fine by me.

"Sorry, Chris, the name just didn't register."

"I'd claim to be hurt," I interject, "but actually I wouldn't have missed this wonderful wind-up of some of my favourite people for the world. Do you need a drink, Sergeant?"

Seaton looks as if he really is about to have a fit. If I didn't loathe the man so much I'd be concerned. Some of his colleagues, who apparently don't loathe him though God alone knows why, do start trying to calm him down.

"Just for the record," Chris says through gritted teeth, "when exactly did you leave Mr Curtis' house last night?"

"Some time between eleven and midnight. Sorry, I didn't really notice the time. I had a few things on my mind."

"I thought you were a bit distracted." Bugger, Sam spotted that. Well, I suppose it was too much to hope for that he'd miss it.

"It was 11:20," he continues, "give or take a few minutes, and before you ask the time of death was shortly before eleven. So unless you've got a time machine hidden away somewhere...."

"I should be so lucky. Can I go now?" The adrenaline has finally worn off, and I'm really beginning to feel my lack of both sleep and coffee.

"I have a few more questions," Chris says, and Sam shoots me a warning glance. Chris is evidently holding on to his temper with some difficulty, so I look suitably penitent. "On the other hand, we don't need to waste any more of the valuable time of these fine officers of the law." Only he makes it sound like an insult. If I wasn't trying to look sorry I'd be applauding.

Thus it is that I leave the local police station, waving cheerfully to all the constables that I really want to embarrass, in the company of one slightly cautious international policeman and one fizzing bottle of anger.

We are barely out of sight of the station door when Chris rounds on Sam. "'The name just didn't register' my ass! What's going on here?"

Sam shrugs helplessly. "I didn't recognise Danny's surname, that's all."

"I'm not sure I ever got round to telling you," I chip in. This turns out to have been entirely the wrong thing to do, as Chris turns on me with considerably less restraint in his eyes than he had with Sam. "We were introduced by christian name," I say, picking my words carefully, "and, well, how often do you use a friend's surname?"

Chris doesn't appear to have an answer to this, which fails to improve his temper any. "Sam, just how long have you known this... this..."

"Rent boy?" I offer, smiling sweetly. Chris glares at me. If looks could kill, I'd be a pair of smoking trainers right now.

"A couple of months, just after the Hardacre case. We happened to be propping up the same bit of bar, and were still chatting when the landlord threw us out." Which is true but irrelevant, since Sam and I had known each other for several weeks before that accidental meeting. Strangely, this doesn't seem to improve Chris' temper much. Americans are always so bloody touchy.

"Look," I say in the most reasonable voice I can manage, "how about we continue this conversation in the cafe over there. I'm much more civilised after coffee, and I haven't had any breakfast yet either. Seaton's boys hauled me out of bed without so much as a by-your-leave."

After all the hassle he's given me so far, I'm a bit surprised when Chris relents. "OK," he says grudgingly. "I still have questions for you."

"After coffee," Sam say firmly. "You're not exactly Prince Charming yourself yet."

The three of us are soon ensconced in The Donut Shop (it's close to a police station, you've got to make some allowances), clutching our steaming mugs of go-juice. As promised, I do become less of a grouch, as does Chris, though it's still clear that our dislike is entirely mutual.

"So," says Sam, trying to insert a businesslike note into our subdued sniping, "did you see anything in Northampton Street last night?"

"I'm afraid not," I have to admit. "Mind you, it was easily half an hour afterwards, and I wasn't at my most observant. The way I was then, I wouldn't guarantee to have noticed a marching band."

"Well, that was a lot of help."

"I do know some of the girls who work the area, I could ask around. Maybe they saw something." And maybe pigs started flying an hour or two ago. "Who was this Crane guy anyway?"

"A link in a chain," Chris says. Very poetic, but completely useless.

"He's a drug distributor we had under surveillance, trying to track back to his boss. It looks like someone slipped up and got noticed, and Crane was killed to stop us getting anything out of him."

"Woo. What lovely people you guys get to meet. I'll see if I can dig up anything useful for you."

"You do drugs?" Chris couldn't wait to ask that one, and even Sam looks a bit concerned.

"Christ, no. But I know guys who do, who know guys who deal, some of whom are fucked up enough to leak like a sieve if they don't realise you're pumping them for info. It'll take a while, and it may not turn up anything you don't already know, but at least there's a chance I can help."

Our pleasant little chat is interrupted by Sam's mobile ringing. "3-7. Yes... sorry Backup, the reception's lousy here, I'll try moving somewhere else." So saying he stands and walks a few paces towards the front of the cafe, to the intense disgust of the owner who now probably believes that I have dragged a couple of yuppie clients in here expressly to annoy him. I'm not best pleased either. It was Sam I wanted to talk to alone, not his bloody irritating partner.

Having nothing better to do, I try questioning Chris. "So, how long have you known Sam?" Always start with something you know the answer to.

"A couple of years," he says, deliberately watching Sam rather than me.

"So what do you make of him?"

An innocent enough question, I thought, but it gets me Chris' undivided attention and a very fishy look. "What fucking business of yours is that?"

I'm beginning to get an idea here, so I don't snap back at him. Instead I look him dead in the eye and say softly, "Because he's been a good friend of mine, and I'd hate his other friends to get the wrong idea. Chris, I know you don't like what I do and I'm not going to make it onto your Christmas card list any time soon, but believe me when I say this. Sam and I have never had sex with each other."

"Why should I believe you?" he almost growls.

I shrug. "Maybe you shouldn't," I say. "But you should believe him."

That hits home. Chris blinks in surprise and chagrin, and I congratulate myself on having done something right again. I think he's jealous of me. Of course, I'm furiously jealous of him too since Sam loves him, even if he is oblivious, irritating and above all American.

Whatever Chris was going to say is lost as Sam returns to us. "We're needed back at HQ. I'll fill you in on the way."

Chris hesitates. "Do you need a lift?" he asks me. It's a peace offering of sorts, but this isn't really the right time. I try to be gracious about it.

"Thanks, that's a kind offer, but I can start on your stuff from here just as well as from home. Besides," I grin, "I got chauffeured here, and I'll get soft if I keep letting people drive me around!"

It's a long day one way and another. I have a lot of people to find and chat to, and I have to do it carefully. If the people that Sam and Chris are after were willing to kill off a distributor to keep their anonymity, they wouldn't have any compunctions about getting rid of a nosy little so-and-so like me. That applies to any of the people I might ask, too. I don't want any of them to get killed either.

It's pretty frustrating work, since I spend most of my time getting nowhere. I'm not entirely sure why I'm doing this. Partly, it's the right thing to do. I do have a serious problem with drug pushers, I've seen too many bright young hopefuls turned into zombies whose only thought is for their next fix. On the other hand, I've never got myself involved, either. The lifespan of an idealistic vigilante on the street would be comparable to the average mayfly, and I've never been that stupid. On the third hand, and don't ask where I got a third hand from, this is a chance to do something without making myself a target. Except of course that I am making myself something of a target just by asking the questions.

Mostly, though, I think I'm trying to prove myself to Sam and, to a lesser extent, Chris. Look, I'm here, I'm useful, I'm not a dumb fuck, I can play on the edges of your world.

This is a monumentally stupid thing to be doing. I know that, and I do it anyway, I can't help myself. I keep telling myself all the reasons why helping to get rid of drug baron is a good thing to be doing, and I don't fool myself in the slightest. I'm doing it because I'm infatuated with Sam and I want to measure up to Chris.

I'm tired and dispirited when I finally get back to my place for a shower and a bite to eat. I haven't got anything to report back to Sam, and like some stupid puppy I really wanted to please him. I'm not entirely sure I've even got the energy to go out for my usual evening shift. Maybe a shower will perk me up.


	4. Chapter 4

I am woken by my phone. Not a good start to the day, and one that isn't improved any by the miserable excuse for light outside. It's early, and as I've mentioned I'm not a morning person.

"Hello?"

"Hi Danny, it's Tony here." And sounding implausibly cheerful too. The bastard hasn't gone to bed yet.

"Tone, what are you doing phoning me at..." I check the bedside clock. "Christ on a bicycle, it's half six! This is all a plot to make sure I don't get any sleep, isn't it?"

"All right," Tony says in mock annoyance, "if you don't want to know about this Crane guy I can always go away."

I sit bolt upright in bed, suddenly awake. "Talk to me, Tone."

"Seems your obsession of the moment was doing lots of business with Old Man Webber."

I grab a notepad and pencil off the table. "Webber? What sort of business?" Old Man Webber is the neighbourhood fixer, with a finger in almost every pie. Whether you want a whore or a heavy, he knows someone who knows someone. If Crane was doing business with him, that could mean anything.

"The hard stuff, man. All sorts of little friends to lighten your day, in quantity, with the occasional 'special procurement' on the side." Meaning hard drugs by the bucket-load and kinky sex. I shouldn't be surprised, if you add in loud rock'n'roll you've listed all of Tony's interests.

"Anything else?" I ask, scribbling frantically.

"Nada. This Crane guy was not a haven for boringness."

"Was the Old Man buying or selling?"

"What do you think? Webs doesn't use, that would be far too cool." True, but he might have been buying to sell on. That would be his style.

"Thanks Tone, I owe you one."

"Oh I'll collect it, believe me. Bye."

I put the phone down and think briefly. Sam must be on an early shift or he wouldn't have been at the police station yesterday... God, was it only yesterday? I hit the speed-dial.

"Sam? It's me, Danny. I've got something for you on the Crane case." I outline Tony's message, such as it was. "The thing is, Webber is strictly small time. He's got a little piece of everything, but only a little piece, and only because everyone finds him useful. He can't be the source of your drugs. This has to have been some sort of sideways deal."

Sam seems suitably impressed with my logic, and pumps me for as much information as I can give on the Old Man. "I'll see if I can dig anything else out. I've got an idea or two..."

"I think you've done quite enough already, Danny," Sam replies. "If you poke any harder you might find yourself in danger. That's my job, not yours."

"OK," I say, trying to sound chastened, and hastily change the subject. "I'll make sure this all gets to the local police too."

Sam sighs. "I hate joint operations, they always make for trouble, but I supposed we'd better. I'll handle it."

"No need. I enjoy being nice to Sergeant Seaton, he doesn't know how to handle it. Sometimes you've just got to be kind to be cruel."

Sam snorts. "Thanks for the offer, but much as I like the idea of confusing the good Sergeant I'd better do it myself. We have to be careful involving other agencies in this game. There's too big a chance that our target has moles to let him know about exactly this sort of operation. I'm trained to deal with the resulting trouble. You could end up dead in short order."

Oh wow. I have to suppress the urge to do cartwheels across the room; Sam actually cares about my continued well-being. At least it's safe to grin maniacally at a phone. "Sorry, I should have thought of that. I'll be more careful in future." That earns me another snort from Sam, presumably at the idea of me being careful.

"Just take care. I'll let you know how this all turns out."

"OK," I say, and ring off. I lie back and try to rest. It's still ages before I normally get up, and I'm still tired, but somehow I can't stop chewing things over. I'm too hyped up now to sit around and do nothing, and despite my promise to Sam I find myself planning how to get him more information. All I really need to do is to get a good look at Webber's paperwork...

Getting a look at Webber's books turns out to be childishly simple. I just wind up Andy Rawnsley and point him at the Old Man. Yokel may not be as stupid as his slow, soft Dorset accent implies, but he's not the brightest star in the heavens either. Once you know how to push his buttons you can talk him into almost anything, and talking him into ranting on about Ellie May is about as easy as it comes.

You see, Ellie May is one of Webber's girls, a little vixen who isn't nearly as smart as she'd like to think. She's been talking about breaking away and setting up on her own, maybe with a few of the other girls. It might work too, Webber isn't that observant as a hands-on pimp, except for the minor detail that she's universally hated. The girl just has a talent for making enemies. She wound up Yokel the first day she appeared on the scene, telling him he was too dumb to know a good thing when he saw one. That's the polite version, by the way, she carried on for a good five minutes before she ran out of breath, with considerably less justification than you'd expect even for an arrogant little snip like her. Yokel is just polite enough not to want to hit a lady, or even Ellie May, but he could carry a grudge for England. All I had to do was to point out that Webber wouldn't be best pleased to know that not only was she thinking of upping sticks (and good riddance to her), she was planning to poach off him as well.

Old Man Webber runs a funny double office system. I think the original layout was for a secretary's office in front of the boss's office, but Webber's way too tight and way too cautious to employ someone just to answer his multitude of phones. What he has ended up with instead is a public office where he can meet people safely, and a private office where all the important information is locked away.

Theoretically, this is a secure setup. There is no way into the inner office that doesn't go through the outer one, except for the windows which are on the second floor. Of course, the windows are also only a ten metre traverse from the fire escape in the alley, and the wall looks easily as climbable as the climbing wall at the gym. Minor details like doing it without a safety rope will merely give me nightmares all week, assuming I survive. I must be insane.

As it happens, doing the traverse is childsplay compared with just hanging on in the next window along waiting for Webber to leave his spider's lair. The sill is crumbly, not at all happy about taking my weight, and I make the classic mistake of looking down. I don't have a fear of heights, but seeing that drop with nothing between me and it except for some elderly concrete that has it in for me turns my legs to jelly in nothing flat. When I hear Webber's sharp voice moving away from the window and the sound of his door opening and closing, I slip in through the open window faster than I thought possible, shivering with fear.

This is the really dangerous bit. I get to play with all the Old Man's records, but only for as long as Yokel keeps him occupied. I've got a few minutes to find out where Webber gets his drug supplies from, and I've got to do it quietly and preferably without leaving a giveaway mess. Why did I ever think this was a good idea?

I start with the desk, which is awash with paper. Surely something here must tell me what Sam and Chris need to know? Nothing leaps out at me as I flip quietly through page after page of no doubt fascinating detail of all sorts of other things. No mention of drugs, individually or collectively. Come on Webber, you have to have been doing something to replace the late Jeremy Crane, even if only reshuffling other dealers.

When one of the phones littering the desk rings, I nearly die of shock. There's no time to get out of the window safely before Webber gets back into the room. I look around desperately for a hiding place in the mercifully messy office, then scuttle to the corner. There is just enough space between the filing cabinet and the wall, underneath a table, for me to fold myself into and try to stop shaking.

I make it just in time. I bury my face in my knees and hug my legs in tight to minimise the chance of being spotted as Webber comes back into his inner sanctum and picks up the phone. "Eight five double-oh three one six two?" he says, and I freeze. I know that number. It's etched on my soul. It's the dodgy job, the number that Tommy rang the night before he jumped.

There has always been a discreet rumour running around that adventurous boys and girls who don't mind a bit of pain can make fuckloads of money if they ring this number. Only the way it's phrased makes "a bit of pain" sound like "should be walking again within six weeks." Reality is even worse. A couple of times a year, someone gets desperate enough to take the job. Sometimes they don't come back. Sometimes they come back, crawl into a corner and die, one way or another. Worst of all, sometimes they come back hollow eyed, broken in spirit, and a broken man doesn't last long on the streets. In all the time I've been here, none of them, not one, has survived. They have the money all right, but they don't get to use it. And even those who've lived for a while have never, ever talked about what happened.

And now I know Old Man Webber has a piece of that action too. I want to kill him here and now, to let him know what having your heart cut out feels like, but I can't. I'm too scared to breathe, never mind move, so I just listen while another terrified, pathetic life offers itself up for the slaughter.

Webber runs through the formalities, stressing the unusualness of the job and the generosity of the payment. Apparently he is satisfied, because he finishes off by saying "Very well. Be at the Stairway Club at half past seven and tell the staff you are there for the private showing. Don't be late." The Stairway Club. I do my best to memorise that. I don't go there much, the place is usually better pickings for the girls, but rumour has it that there are some very nice back rooms you can use if you let the barman have a cut.

I'm praying for Webber to go back out so that I can start breathing, but no, he picks up the phone again. "It's Webber. Tell Mr Declan that one of his special packages is due this evening. Yes, we will process him and deliver. The Whitsun warehouse, eight p.m., I understand." He put the phone down, growling "Now let's see about that little bitch."

The moment I hear the office door, I start moving. I don't want to be in there any more, can't stand the thought of another moment near that phone. If I were capable of rational thought I'd apologise to Sam and Chris for not getting the information they need, but I'm not. I come to myself again sitting on the fire escape, hugging my knees and rocking back and forth. All I can think of is that someone else has taken the job. Someone else is going to die.

I can't let that happen.

I spend the afternoon mulling things over in Branigan's Bar. It doesn't take me long to twig that Webber's second phone call also has something to do with the job. If the 'special package' reference wasn't enough, Webber also said that he'd process 'him.' Personal pronoun. So everything's going to go down at the Whitsun warehouse, wherever that is, with the Stairway as a cut-out. At least the warehouse must be reasonably nearby, they only have half an hour to nab the poor dupe, 'process' him and spirit him over there.

Leaving that aside for the moment, what do I do when I find the damned warehouse? I could call the police, but I know what they'll do. Even if I could persuade them I was serious, Seaton and co won't want to lift a finger for a faggot. The pillock has gone in of his own free will, they'll point out. And they'll be right.

I could call Sam. But he's got a case of his own, and anyway CI5 is an international outfit. They won't want to get involved in something purely local like this. Besides, his boss wouldn't let him, if all the talk about not getting emotionally involved in work are anything to go by. Rule number one, or something like that. I agreed with him at the time, getting emotionally involved in my job is a mistake too. Ironic, really, that I was getting emotionally involved as I said it.

Sod it, I have to find this place first. If... when I do, then I'll figure out what to do. If the worst comes to the worst I can always start a fire and dial 999.

It's at about this point that I notice Yokel heading towards me with a face like thunder. I school my face into an admittedly weak smile and try to push my racing thoughts aside, otherwise I won't be fit company for a conversation. "Hi, how did it go?"

The next thing I know I'm picking myself up off the floor and someone has let off a fireworks factory in my head. It's still sinking in that he punched me as Yokel hauls me up and pins me against the wall. His face mere inches away from mine, he growls, "You used me, you bastard."

"Wh-what?"

"I saw you in the office, just as the door closed."

"Y-... Andy, I'm sorry." At times like this his accent isn't the slightest bit funny. "I couldn't tell you, or he'd smell a rat." I may be rattled, but at least I have the presence of mind not to mention the Old Man's name somewhere where he'd get to hear about it.

"I hope whatever you got was worth it, 'cos when I'm finished with you—"

"Someone's taken the dodgy job."

Yokel pauses. He misses Tommy as well, I know, it's the one thing that has kept him from taking that job despite some pretty hard times. "Why should I believe you?"

"I heard the number while I was hiding. He's in on it, you've got to believe me. This evening, some poor bastard is going to—"

"You talk too much." Yokel still isn't pleased, but at least he isn't hitting me any more. I take a deep breath and try to collect my scattered thoughts.

"Andy, do you know a place called the Whitsun warehouse is? It's got to be somewhere near the Stairway."

"There's an industrial estate down there somewhere. Why?"

"Because that's where the next victim is going to lose everything." I play the line for all the drama it's worth, which is easy because I mean it. "Are you going to help me or not? Because if you aren't, at least give me a chance to stop it happening."

"I don't believe you." Yokel looks unsure, though.

"If I'm lying, you'll know tomorrow and you know where to find me. If I'm not..." I leave the implications for him to work out.

"Aw, just fuck off. If I find out you've been playing me for a fool here, I swear I'll kill you." He probably would too, and he'd have no shortage of volunteers to hold me down. That job is not something any of us want to hear about, and using it as a fake excuse would be a good way to earn the enmity of the whole community.

I get the hell out of there. I've got an industrial estate to find.

It's entirely too close to eight o'clock for my comfort before I'm lurking in the shadows, staring at the building labelled "F.H. Whitsun Ltd." It isn't on the industrial estate Yokel first thought of, but it turns out that there was another one only half a mile away, still close to the Stairway. It just takes me time to find it. Too much time; there are already cars drawn up outside. It's too late to call for help; if anything is going to be done, I will have to do it myself, and soon.

To my intense delight one of the side windows is slightly ajar, affording me a view inside. It looks like the warehouse has been converted into offices by the simple expedient of putting in a false ceiling and partitioning. That gives me an idea. I scramble in through the small window, and using a desk and an interior girder I am up in the roof space in moments. It's huge, and it's all mine. OK, so I can only get to the parts where the bracing girders go, but the warehouse isn't that big. I'm not going to miss much.

I go on the prowl, in search of the main event. The cross-girders are big and wide, easy to walk on, and in any case I can use the wires suspending the false ceiling for support if I don't lean on them too heavily. My search is made easier by only having to look into the lighted areas, and fortunately the fluorescent panels are fitted badly enough that I can just about see past them into the rooms below. Not much of a view, but enough to tell me if anything is going on.

It doesn't take me long to find the sick little scene in the far corner of the warehouse. All I can see to start with is the naked victim strapped into this weirdo contraption. Imagine a medieval rack standing on its end, pulled out into three dimensions and without the back board but with the big wheel replaced by little motors all over the place. It doesn't look much like that, but that's what it'll do. The poor sap is currently standing bent slightly forwards, secured by soft leather cuffs at the wrists, ankles and neck, but I'm willing to bet that thing can bend him into any shape his perverted bastard client wants. The wonders of modern technology.

In an effort to get a better view I swing down to hang from my girder. I can't keep it up for long, but hopefully I won't need to. My hopes that the victim is alone are, unfortunately, immediately dashed as a man in an expensive-looking suit blocks my view of him. I can just see a few others on the edge of my vision.

Mr Suit speaks in a soft voice that sends shivers of fear down my spine. "If you'd been a good boy and drunk up when you were asked to, this wouldn't hurt so much. But now you have to be punished. We'll start with a little light whipping, I think. Oh, the walls are adequately thick, by the way. You can't even hear the printing press running next door, so feel free to scream all you like. No one else will know."

"Go fuck yourself," the victim rasps.

There is a low, sexy chuckle that sounds such pure evil that I nearly break and run. "All in good time, my dear." He holds up a large steel ring, and some kind of device that...

Christ! They're going to force the poor sod's anus open and jam that ring in so he can't close the door on them. If it's ridged the way it looks like it might be, it might even take surgery to get it out again. F... Christ!

Then Mr Suit moves away to let his whip man do his stuff, and I finally get a good look at the victim. It's Chris Keel.

I nearly fall. I can't cope with this, it's so far out of my league it's not funny. I clamber back onto the girder and slowly retreat, shaking badly. I don't know what to do. I don't understand why Chris is doing this. I don't belong here. I... I pull my mobile out, switch it back on and dial Sam with shaking hands. He'll know what to do.

There is no answer. The phone I am dialling is switched off or out of range, I am told. I try to think of something to say to his voicemail, but a disturbance below me sends me into panic again. I turn the phone off fast and keep quiet until I hear an office door shut and voices moving away. Then in an effort not to think about what I've just seen, I quietly lift a ceiling tile and look down.

Below me is an unlit office. It's not particularly interesting, which is fine by my racing heart just at the moment. I'm on the point of dropping the tile back in place and phoning someone — anyone — for help again when something on the floor catches my attention. It's the work of moments to slip down into the office and snatch up what looks like an earpiece and microphone set. I can use it with my mobile so that I've got my hands free for clinging on if I can figure out where to plug in the cable.

No cable. What the hell? As I turn it over in my hands, my fingers brush a small stud. I nearly drop it as a tiny, tinny voice comes out of it. Some sort of radio? If I can listen in on Mr Suit's goons, maybe I can figure out some way to use it to my advantage. I jam it over my ear and head back to the safety of the ceiling.

As I recover my balance on the girder, the voice comes again. A woman. In an urgent American accent she asks, "3-7 please respond, what's going on?" American. And '3-7' was how Sam answered his phone yesterday. The bottom abruptly falls out of my world. Again.

"Fuck," I say succinctly. I've fallen into a CI5 operation, and it's going wrong. They can't have known what Chris was getting into. I press the little stud again, hoping it's the transmit button, and whisper "I think he's been caught."

There is silence, then the woman says, "Who is this?"

"A friend of Sam's." Idiot, idiot, they don't use names over the radio. "I heard a scuffle and found this radio. I think he must have been caught sneaking about in here."

"3-7 can take care of himself." Yes, I know that. "Have you seen anyone else?"

"Three bad guys, the boss and two others. I think they're heavies, at least that's what they looked like. There must be more of them, though. More heavies I mean, to catch 3-7 as well. I didn't have a good view. And 3-7's partner's in there too. He's in deep shit." I'm aware that I'm babbling, so I take a moment to calm down before asking a question of my own. "How fast can you get people in here?"

"What's going on?"

"You don't want to know. You _really_ don't want to know. Just get here." I start moving along the girder back to the torture chamber. I don't want to go there, but CI5 will need to know.

"Where are you?"

"I'm safely hidden, don't worry." I am worried, though, so worried that I even forget to be sarcastic to those annoying transatlantic tones.

"Good. Keep well out of the way. This sort of business is no place for a civilian."

You're fucking telling me? I suspend myself upside down again to be able to see and hear what's going on, and manage to avoid swearing out loud. "3-7 is definitely caught," I whisper.

"Stay put!"

"...just a friend. I only wanted to make sure he was OK," Sam is saying. He's trying to play the innocent, looking on appalled at the welts rising on Chris' back. That isn't going to wash with Evil Mr Suit. Even if he believes Sam, he'll look on him as a challenge.

"Ah, such friendship. I think devotion like that should be rewarded, don't you, Mansell?" There is a grunt from someone I can't see. "Yes, under the circumstances I think we should give you the honour of the first fuck."

Sam looks at Mr Suit like he can't believe his ears. I can. The irony of it makes me want to scream. Sam wants Chris, but not like this will be. It'll kill him.

"You're... you're kidding."

"No. Strip."

"Fuck off and die."

Mr Suit sighs. "Such ingratitude. If you really wish, you can take your delightful little friend's place... after he's died of strangulation." I see him press a button on some sort of remote control, and the contraption that Chris is strapped to starts to move. Slowly, Chris' feet are lifted off the floor, overbalancing him so that his entire weight is resting on his wrists for as long as his arms can support him. Once his strength goes, his neck will take the strain and he will slowly asphyxiate. "Such a slow death, I'm sure we can play it out for hours while you watch."

Sam tenses up, ready to spring, but even I can tell it's useless. The two men at his back would bring him down before he got anywhere. Shoulders slumped, he bends to remove his shoes.

I too reach a decision and haul myself back onto the girder. "I've got to do something," I whisper into the radio.

"Stay put, we'll be there in a couple of minutes."

"Too late."

"Which part of 'stay put' did you not understand?"

"The part where my friends get raped," I say, and jump.

It's more painful than I'd thought. The ceiling tiles fall apart under my feet the way you'd expect, but the aluminium frame holding it all together gives me a proper savaging as I pass through. Fortunately I have a nice soft landing in the shape of the goons at Sam's back. Two down, and — shit, there's fuckloads of the bastards here! Sam doesn't even look round to see what the commotion is, he just springs barefoot at the nearest man in front of him and yells "Get Chris free!"

I pause just long enough to knock the heads of my two goons together before attacking Chris' bindings. I have one foot unstrapped when Chris gives a hoarse cry; "Behind you!" I turn to see a man diving at me with an knife. There's no time to think, which is probably just as well. If I had time to think I'd probably panic. As it is I simply react the way that Sam taught me just forty eight hours ago. Side-step, clamp the outstretched knife-arm to my side, and bring my right arm across hard. It works, and I get to find out what a sickening crunch sounds like as his arm breaks. When I have time, the little voice in the back of my mind notes, I must remember to throw up.

It carries on like this. We're seriously outnumbered here, and while Sam does a good job of keeping people off my back I still have to flail out with fists, elbows and feet several times. Often all I manage to do is distract someone close enough that Chris, tied up as he is, can get a good solid kick on them. Eventually I get one of his hands free, which should speed things up no end. I am just congratulating myself on this when Chris yells "Duck" and sweeps my feet out from under me. There is a whistling noise as of something passing entirely too close to my head.

Standing over me is a man with a length of piping; at least I think it's piping. In this little torture chamber I don't care to think what else it might be. For the moment at least he is paying attention to Chris, who hasn't quite got the reach to get to him, so I lash out from my prone position. I'm trying to kick him in the stomach but I miss, which turns out to be good since I get him square in the balls.

I get back to my feet and give him a proper punch while he's still doubled over. That takes care of him I think, as Chris turns his attention back to his straps. He can free himself now, but there are two more goons approaching and I need to delay them for him. I strike what I hope they will mistake for a martial arts pose in an effort to buy time. I have very little clue what I'm doing, despite the bits and pieces of self-defence that Sam showed me because he couldn't believe I'd never learned any. Fortunately for me, my acting is better than my fighting and they do pause, at least briefly. Then it all gets frantic and I start hurting, until Chris is free and they go down.

Despite my personal incompetence, things seem to get easier from then. I somehow manage to not die, largely by remembering to pick up the pipe and fend people off with it. Sam is more than holding his own, but Chris, naked and in pain, is death on wings. Wherever he is in the room, the bad guys go down and stay down. If I had any spare breath and wasn't quite so bruised, I'd cheer.

Then there's a sharp crack and someone knocks the wind out of me. No, not someone, something. I've been shot. Funny, I think wildly as I watch the blood stain my shirt, I expected it would hurt more. I look up shakily to see Mr Suit taking unsteady aim at Sam beside me. "No!" I scream and knock Sam to the floor. _Now_ it hurts, God help me it _hurts!_ I have the satisfaction of seeing the bullet tear apart the wall above our heads as Chris charges Mr Suit, then more gun-wielding people burst in with very angry faces. "Freeze," yells the woman leading them. I recognise her voice. We are saved.

Then it all goes black.


	5. Chapter 5

There are voices around me, asking questions, telling me I'll be OK. I'm confused. I feel so weak, and I hurt. What happened?

"You've been shot, Danny." Oh. I must have spoken out loud. That was Chris, and there was real concern in his voice. It's unsettling, and anyway it's not the voice I want to hear.

"Sam?" Well, as croaks go it was a reasonable approximation to his name.

"I'm here Danny. You're going to be OK." That's good to know. I'm still scared.

"Don't leave."

"We won't. We're here for you."

"Good." I can sleep now.

I wake again when they start carrying me. "Hurtssss."

"It's OK, Danny." Sam?

"You'll be in the hospital soon." Chris. Good. I hide from the pain in unconsciousness.

The next time I wake I'm feeling more than a bit fuzzy. I'm lying in a bed but I don't recognise the room at all. There is a moment of panic until I remember that we won. This must be the hospital Chris promised.

I can't feel any pain. Well, not much. My stomach hurts a bit and there's a sore spot on my left side where I think I got kicked, but that's about it. I can't figure it out, I know I was shot and beaten up. It ought to hurt. Eventually it dawns on me that they must be pumping me with pain killers. It's what they do in hospitals, isn't it? It might have something to do with the way I can't think straight too.

"Sleeping Beauty awakens," says a familiar, amused voice by my side.

"Sam!" Well, that's what I meant to say. It actually comes out as a croak and a coughing fit.

"It's OK, don't try to speak yet. Drink this." 'This' turns out to be water, which my throat desperately needs. I hadn't realised I was so dry. I must have been out of it for a while.

"How are you?"

Sam smiles, which is not a pretty sight on his bruised face. "I'm fine. Bruised but unbroken. You, on the other hand, had us all worried for a while there. That was a nasty gut shot you took. They had you in theatre for longer than I care to think of."

"I'm OK now." It's not a terribly convincing line, especially given that Sam has had access to the doctors while I've been unconscious, but it doesn't really matter. There's one last question I've got to ask, even though I don't want to. "Chris?"

"Apart from his back, he's fine."

"No, I meant have you two... have you told him yet?" Sam looks away, which gives me my answer. I sigh. "He needs you, you know. He's just been this close to nightmare. He—"

"He's just been this close to me raping him. The very last thing he needs right now is for me to tell him I wanted to do it!"

There was worse in store than that, and Chris knew it. Do I dare tell Sam? I can't, not without being able to think a whole lot clearer than I can at the moment. I've still fallen for him, and trying to get him and Chris together is more than I can cope with right now. "You're wrong," is all I can muster.

Then a nurse comes in and starts fussing over me, which kind of precludes more personal conversation. She chides Sam for getting me worked up again, despite my protests that it wasn't his fault, and lets slip that he and Chris have taken turns to be here. It seems that Chris really has forgiven me for ruining his morning. More importantly, Sam has been here. That's a nice thought to drift back to sleep with.

The following day I awaken alone, which is disappointing. Reassuring in one way; they wouldn't leave me if I was in any danger, but I miss Sam's gentle sarcasm. It's not long, however, before I get a visitation from Sam and Chris in their official capacity as CI5 operatives. Apparently their darling boss wants them to get my side of the story for the official report, which amuses me no end. Someone like me an official witness for a serious investigation? Pull the other one! I also have half a hundred questions for them, and pull out all the stops on the 'poor invalid civilian' front to get them to spill the beans first.

They indulge me, as one would a particularly stupid child. Which I suppose I am, but at least they seem to be in a good mood. That in itself is little short of a miracle given what they've just been through — they make them tough in CI5! Still, I find myself watching Chris carefully. He's just faced a nightmare that has destroyed other men, and I can't quite let myself believe that he's OK just yet.

It turns out that my death-defying climb into Old Man Webber's office was entirely unnecessary. Sam and Chris explain as a tag team that CI5, having perfectly good informational resources of its own thank you very much Danny, had already found out a good deal about how Webber was getting his drug supplies. What they couldn't do was to get Declan's name (that's Evil Mr Suit to you) out of their investigations, but they also knew that the special procurement service was tied up with the same source. The obvious solution was to set Chris up as bait and swoop before anything could happen. There was a tracer hidden on his clothing, and agents all around, so nothing could go wrong (ha!).

Of course they forcibly stripped Chris at the Stairway before taking him to the warehouse. The transfer car had been spotted, but only Sam had followed it while the others raided the club, in case it was another blind. Once they confirmed what was going on, Sam went into the warehouse and the rest of them rushed to the scene, and I knew the rest.

Then it's my turn to confess my activities, stupid as they now seem. I tell them about creeping in through Webber's window, searching for shipping records, and overhearing the phone call. "Once I heard that, it was all I could think about. I wish you'd told me. I know you had no reason to, but I nearly died of fright when I saw you strapped to that thing, Chris."

"We are trained to resist torture, you know."

Oh. "I didn't. On the other hand I did knew the last man to take that job. He committed suicide the following morning. He wasn't the only one to do that."

Chris is still looking mildly affronted that I didn't think he could take it, but Sam understands. "Tommy," he says quietly. I nod, fighting back the tears that come with those old memories. This is not a time for bloody blubbering.

"You do get the occasional party job, where your arse gets passed around the room. They're not exactly popular, but we cope. We don't go around leaping off bridges because of it. Whatever Mr Suit — Declan was planning, gang rape was only the start of it.

"And then you got caught, Sam. I heard a scuffle while I was panicking over what to do for Chris, trying to phone you of all things. I wasn't thinking all that straight by this stage. Anyway, I peeked down when I thought the coast was clear and found the radio."

Chris gives me a wry grin. "Backup nearly had kittens when you answered. She was this close to changing frequency to cut you out."

"Backup? That's the American woman?"

"Canadian," Sam corrects primly, and Chris rolls his eyes as if I'd just made a major boo-boo. Which I have.

"Oh, that's OK then." I get the eyebrow treatment. "It's nothing. I just have this thing about Americans, present company excluded." Mostly excluded. That comment gets me both eyebrows. "Put it down to my natural cynicism and some bad experiences in expensive hotels.

"Anyway, I crawled back to my spy hole in the ceiling to get more information and I heard Declan tell you it was rape Chris or watch him die, and I knew your colleagues weren't going to get there in time. I couldn't let either of those things happen."

"So you jumped in with both feet." Chris looks distinctly unimpressed, and starts laying into me about how dangerous it was for someone untrained like me just being in there. I could have been killed a dozen times over, I should consider myself lucky only to have been shot. And so on. I'm moderately certain that Sam is hiding a smile as Chris carries on; he told me about the "body bag" lecture that he gave to Chris a while back, and this sounds like a close relative. I'm touched that Chris thinks enough of me to bother with the warning, but I've already promised myself not to do anything so stupid ever again, so I'm only really listening with one ear while I think about Sam and Chris' body language.

It's clear they haven't talked. Both of them keep opening up some distance between each other, as if they were afraid of something happening. Except their expressions aren't of fear for themselves, but of concern for each other. They do notice each other's movements, but I think they're interpreting them as fear or disgust from the way they shrink away. They certainly haven't noticed that both of them close the distance again when they concentrate on something else. The great pillocks. Each of them needs the other, but they're making the noble sacrifice to give each other space in which to fester.

Eventually Chris runs out of things to say, and it's time for my penitential response. "I understand," I say, meaning far more than just his words. "I won't get involved in things I can't cope with, but in return you guys have got to do something for me." I pause for a deep breath. I need a moment to squash the voice screaming at me to let it go, because that way I can have Sam.

"Talk to each other."

Chris looks puzzled, but Sam's face abruptly goes impassive on me. There's a hint of anger in his gaze, but I press on. I've started and I'm bloody well going to finish, even if it kills me. Which it will, but I'll deal with that later. "Talk about what happened. You both stared at the gates of Hell, and you need to talk about it. To each other."

Chris has caught up now, and is staring at me with a scowl. "You have no idea what you're asking—"

"I know exactly what I'm asking. I'm not blind; I saw what went on, and I can see what's happening now. You need to talk; you're giving each other space at the moment, and it's absolutely the last thing you need."

"And how would you know that?"

"Because people-watching is one of my basic skills. I'm good at my job because I'm good at figuring out people's reactions, and I know I'm right about you two. Remember what I said to you in the cafe?"

Chris nods, then starts slightly. I'd told him that I hadn't had sex with Sam. I think he's just put two and two together and realised I'm talking about his reactions. His jealousy, to be exact. "I said it because you needed to know, because I could see how... what you were thinking."

That's about as far as I can go without telling him outright that I know he loves Sam. Sam needs to hear that from him, not from me. The message does seem to have got through, though. Chris is looking thoughtful again, and I think I can see a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

Sam is another matter entirely. He is still completely impassive, giving away nothing of his thoughts. "We discussed this before, Danny. It's not a good idea at this time."

"It's a bloody essential idea, you've got to do it! God, you two can be so fucking frustrating! Sneak into a warehouse full of armed thugs, no problem. Talk to your closest friend about your emotions, way too fucking dangerous. Sam, how long were you planning to wait? A week? A month? Six months? One of you could be dead by then."

Sam does flinch slightly at that, so I go for a really low blow. "I never talked to Tommy about it. I often wonder if he would still have jumped if I had."

Sam is still not giving anything away, but I'm suddenly tired. I can only hope that I got through. "Was there anything else? Not that I don't like you guys or anything, but I'm knackered."

I am left alone with as much grace as anyone can muster. We are all struggling with our thoughts, and I in particular need some peace to cry in. I've never done anything so painful in my entire life, even being shot was easier. At least for that they've got hospitals and doctors. All I get is the pale prize of knowing that I'm doing the right thing, even as I break my own heart. Sometimes I wish I believed in God, so I could believe I was building up some heavenly bank account, but I don't even have that comfort.

My dose of idealism — or is it realism? — extends to one more decision that I'd wanted to put off. I can't go back to work. OK, so that's being overly dramatic, but I've always known that sometime I'd have to find some other way to keep body and soul together. I've got a good few years in me yet before I'm too old to attract customers, the scar from the bullet wound probably won't matter more than making me throw out half my wardrobe, but the future seems nearer now than it used to. I guess being shot makes you think like that, or maybe it's being stuck in hospital with nothing to do but think. Whatever the reason, I want to find myself a real job.

The main problem is I don't know how to do anything else. I suppose at a pinch I could get a job at the gym or the library or something, but I've only learned one trade and I've always prided myself that I'm good at it. I don't know what to do, and ironically I've just sent my best friends outside the business away with a flea in their ear, so I can't ask them for advice.

Late in the afternoon I get another visitor, a petite woman I don't know.

"Danny?" she says, and I place her accent immediately.

"Miss Backup? It's nice to finally put a face to the voice. I wasn't in much of a condition to pay attention last time I saw you."

She grimaces slightly. "You've been talking to the boys, haven't you? It's Backus, Tina Backus, and it's good to see you able to take an interest in things again. You had us worried. Don't worry, I'm not here on official business. I come bearing chocolates."

I perk up. I don't have a particularly sweet tooth, but I appreciate the gesture. Besides, they're Thornton's choccies, not appreciating them would be a crime. "Thanks!" I say, breaking into the box with a will before offering her one. Ladies first, and all that.

There is a moment or two of contented munching before she asks me, "So what was going on in there?"

"If Sam and Chris won't tell you, I don't think I should either. Suffice it to say it wasn't a healthy place to be."

"You mentioned something about rape."

"Chris volunteered for a sex job that everyone on the street avoids, then Sam presented himself as a target too. It wasn't good, what did you expect?"

Miss Backup — Backus, must remember that, Backus — tries a different tack. "How do you think they're handling it?"

It sounds innocent enough, but something about the way that she says it tips me off that she's trying something on. I try not to be obvious about it, but I start watching her much more carefully, trying to figure her out.

"Well, they're doing about as well as you'd expect. There's some tension between them, and of course wild horses couldn't make them talk about it, but they'll be fine." I think.

"Are you sure of that? They seemed a bit... distant."

"I'm not surprised, they've got a lot to think over." I hesitate, not quite sure where I want to turn this conversation. "They're a good team, aren't they?"

"The best. Always there for each other, watching each other's back. That's what concerns me right now; they aren't watching out for each other."

"Oh they are, they're just trying very hard to hide it. Don't worry, they'll get over it. All they need is time, really."

"And each other," she murmurs.

The tumblers in my head click together, and I finally work out what she's driving at.

"How long have you known?" I ask quietly.

She smiles, but I can't shake the feeling there's something slightly brittle behind it. "A while now. They do spend such a lot of time watching each other. I've taken to booking them shared rooms when they're on a mission in the name of budgetary constraints."

I have to laugh back. "You'll have to be a lot less subtle than that!"

"Huh?" Pause. "You mean they haven't...?"

"No. How two people can be simultaneously so smart and so dumb, I do not know. I've done my best to get them to talk without flat-out telling them, but I don't know whether they will."

Her smile dies. "Oh God. Rape."

"It didn't happen, but it got close. That's why they're so cautious with each other right now, I think." I'm right back in this morning's talk, and it hurts all over again, and I can't believe I'm discussing it with someone I barely know. "What else can we do?" I say dully, really meaning suppressing my own feelings for Sam.

"Wait. Hope. If all else fails, lock them in a closet."

That at least raises a smile from me. As we chuckle, slightly desperately, I notice someone else coming up to the door. "Andy! Come on in, have a chocolate! Miss Backus, this is Andy Rawnsley, a friend of mine. Andy, Tina Backus." It's a good excuse to change the subject, and anyway I am glad to see my old friends haven't entirely forgotten me. "How are things out in the real world?"

"Fair to middling, and nice to meet you ma'am." Yes, I'm afraid he does talk like that. She should be grateful he didn't call her Miss Tina. "Old Man Webber's in a bit of a flap, though. It seems someone let it slip that he was supplying boys to people who didn't bring 'em back, and folks are not best pleased."

We share a grin, then I sober. "I'm sorry about the other day. You were right, I shouldn't have used you to get at him."

"S'all right, it came out for the best. I'm just sorry I weren't there to help you. Then maybe you wouldn't have got shot when the police went charging in."

"Is that what the rumour mill's saying? I got shot seconds before the cavalry arrived, unfortunately," and let's not mention that the police had nothing to do with it. "We got the bastard who did it, though." I look to Tina for confirmation.

"Oh yes, he's going away for a long time, with some presents to remember us by. Specifically, a broken wrist, two cracked ribs, a fractured jaw and mild concussion."

I whistle. "Chris was restrained."

"He was more concerned about you."

Oh. I was joking. She wasn't.

"Yeah," Yokel says trying to get back into the conversation, "How are you?"

"Sore, but the doctors say I should heal up fine."

"Yes, a couple of weeks of physiotherapy and you'll just have the scar to show for your brush with death."

"Weeks?!" I hadn't realised it was going to be that long. "I'll be bored out of my mind! My library books will be overdue! Tina, you can't let them keep me here for weeks!"

Tina sighs indulgently. "You're as bad as the boys. The doctors won't keep you in here longer than they have to, you know. I'll get something organised about your books, and you'll be out of here soon."

"Yeah, you'll be back with the gang before you know it."

I swallow. Here comes another unpleasant truth. "I'm not sure I am coming back to the street, Andy."

"Huh?"

"I've been thinking. I know, it's dangerous and I do it too much, but being shot and stuck in here has made me take stock. I can't stay a pro forever, we all know that, and... well it just feels like the right time. I've got an enforced break now, I might as well make use of it."

"But what will you do?" Yokel asks.

"I don't know. I'll think of something."

"At least come clubbing with us."

"Hey, I've got no intention of stopping being a friend, Yokel. I just don't want to be competition any more." I try for a mischievous grin, which doesn't quite seem to work on him.

"Being shot is a pretty sobering experience," Tina offers sympathetically. "Danny was completely out of it for over a day, and that scars more than your body. Just remember, there's plenty of time, you don't need to make any snap decisions."

Shit! I lost a complete day! If I thought about it I would have noticed that the hours didn't add up, but I didn't think about it. "I lost a day?"

Tina frowns. "You didn't know?"

"I didn't think about it. Christ on a bicycle, I lost a whole day!"

"But you're OK now," Yokel offers.

"Yes, it's all routine hospital stuff now," Tina says, "including the doctors not telling you what happened. Remind me to slap some of them about the head later. Why doesn't anything ever run smoothly?"

"Not enough Vaseline," Yokel drawls, making us all laugh. Underneath the good humour I still find it all very frightening; I've lost a day of my life. Even the thought of Sam and Chris watching over me can't completely take away the fear that brings. I bury the feelings as we keep on talking over inconsequential stuff.

It doesn't take much longer for Yokel to work out that Tina has to be police or something (neither of us having mentioned CI5), which annoys him intensely. His logic seems to run along the lines of her being far too nice to be a copper, and why did she trick him into liking her before she said anything. I have to laugh. The icing on the cake comes when the nurses shoo them out, casually assuming that Tina is Yokel's sister. Their frigid response of "Do we sound like brother and sister" in perfect unison makes me laugh so hard my wound aches.

I manage to stave off black introspection until the evening, mainly by flirting gently with the nurses, even-handedly chatting up both the men and the women to their considerable confusion. I know, I shouldn't mess with people's heads, but for a while it beats messing with my own. When I do give in and hang out my emotions on the metaphorical washing line, it's not a comfortable experience.

I'm afraid, basically. Afraid about my future, afraid that I've completely ballsed it up for Sam and Chris, afraid that I'll break down the next time I see them and beg Sam to take me, afraid of having been unconscious for a day and how much worse it might have been, afraid of just how few people would have cared. Normally I'd take these fears out one by one, look at them honestly, and convince myself that they either aren't real or aren't that earth-shatteringly important after all. I'm too scared to do that today, because I'm afraid that I'll find out they are real after all.

I'm right back where I was when Tommy died. Then of course I could and did bury myself in work, get literally fucked out of my mind. I can't do that this time. Instead I have time to think, and nothing to do or read that would divert me into less destructive channels. I keep on constructing these scenarios in which things have gone horribly wrong, and it's my fault, and I get even more miserable if such a thing is possible. There is no bright side. The happiest ending I can think of is Sam and Chris going off and forgetting all about me.

Hiding it as best I can from the nurses, I cry myself to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

The following day they let me out of bed for more than a few minutes at a time. Ostensibly this is for physiotherapy to start gently, but since my physio has all the charm and tact of a marine drill sergeant, 'gently' does not appear to be in his vocabulary. I ache all over when he's finished with me, and I daren't bend at the waist in case I rupture something.

My day lightens somewhat when Tina Backus drops by with some books. She seems rather hurried as she apologises for not having asked me what I wanted from the library, but at least I'm in no danger of having overdue books now. I forebear to ask how she got into my room to get the library books, on the grounds that she might tell me. Besides, I know that lock isn't any too secure even if I don't know how to pick it myself. Anyway, she has made a decent stab at a selection for me: Dumas' _Three Musketeers,_ Heinlein's _Citizen of the Galaxy_ and the next volume of Gibbons' _Decline and Fall_ after the one I had out from the library. I'd been intending to give myself a break from the Romans with some pop science, but it's no big deal.

"I can't stay long," she says, "because Malone is coming. Harry Malone, my boss." I must be looking exceptionally confused at this point, because she feels it necessary to add sarcasm. "You know, the head of CI5."

"Er, yeah, but why?"

"I don't know. I think he wants more details out of you and doesn't want to keep sending Chris and Sam back and forth. Whatever it is, you mustn't tell him a thing about what's going on between those two."

I struggle to follow her logic. "Is this something to do with rule number one, not getting emotionally involved?"

"Exactly. The worry with any agents who are a couple is that one might foul up a mission to save the other, and maybe end up costing more lives. If Malone gets a sniff of what's going on, he'll reassign them or worse."

"Charming. Well, since nothing is going on right now I can tell him that with a hand on my heart and a clear conscience."

Still, I start sorting through things in the back of my mind, working out what I can and can't say and what cracks need papering over. And of course fighting the temptation to leak the news so as to have another chance at Sam. If I believed in God, I'd be cussing him right now.

Tina hesitates, then gives me a quick kiss on the forehead. "What was that for?" I ask.

"Not counting the cost," she says enigmatically.

I'm touched, but it's a warning of sorts. If I've been letting it show that clearly to her, and I don't care how good she is at reading people, then I'm going to have to get my act together in a hurry. Mr Malone is supposed to eat young tearaways like me for breakfast. I'm going to have to be much better than that if I'm going to keep anything from him.

Then I see the pain lurking there in the back of her eyes, and I just know that she's seen its twin in my eyes too. I have been exceptionally stupid. She also has a crush on one of them. I should have noticed yesterday, I really should. Blame it on the medication, Danny.

A few moments later a grey-haired and rather chilly-looking gentleman stalks into the room, and both she and I try to hide our feelings for the men we can't have. "Thanks again for the books," I say as Tina starts to leave the room. "At least I won't die of boredom now." Then I turn my attention to the newcomer.

"Mr Thurlow? I'm Harry Malone, head of CI5." Amazing. He manages to sound irritated and scornful before I've had the slightest chance to needle him.

"I'm honoured to meet you, sir," I say in my most civil voice. I'm sure I don't fool him for a minute, but if he's looking for the barbs in my words, he may not read too much into the expression on my face. "Your agents have told me so much about you."

"None of it good, I'll wager." I look sheepish, since it's what he'll expect right now. "Now, if you could spare me a few minutes of your valuable time, I'd like to know how a civilian became entangled in a CI5 operation."

I am grilled by an expert. Malone takes me through the day from start to finish, in detail, then backtracks through the previous morning's events, before quizzing me about when I met Sam. I stick to Sam's line about meeting in the bar at the George V, but Malone ambushes me on that one.

"I am told that you were already visiting the area in which Mr Curtis lives before that encounter."

Shit, he suspects something. God only knows what, but he suspects something. "I do have some semi-regular clients nearby, in fact it was some sour business with one of them that caused me to call in on Sam after we'd first met. I was just in his neighbourhood, that's all." Which is true, by the way.

"Sour business?" He makes it sound unsavoury, which I suppose it was.

"Unsatisfactory, at least from my point of view. I would prefer to keep the details confidential. I needed to let off steam, and it occurred to me that Sam wouldn't mind if I chewed up some of his time to rant at the world in general. It was what we had done in the pub, after all."

"Do you make a habit of such things?"

"Normally I'd go out with friends. On this occasion I stayed in with a friend. The difference was relatively minor."

"So why would I be told that you had been to see Mr Curtis prior to this?"

"I have absolutely no idea." I look mildly surprised, as I would if I hadn't suspected he was leading towards this and had been telling the truth all along. Don't start offering excuses too early, that's the key to credibility.

"Come now, Mr Thurlow, you can do better than that."

I shrug, looking confused. "Not really. Perhaps someone mistook someone else for me, or got the date or the place wrong or something. Whoever they saw, it wasn't me, not then and there." I pause, then offer hesitantly, "I've certainly never had Sam as a client, if that's what you're thinking. There's no possibility of blackmail there."

Malone hems. It looks like I might have found that particular concern, but he carries on with his offensive. "What about yourself, Mr Thurlow? Could you be blackmailed?"

"Let's see. I don't have a lover, my friends already know what I do, and I disowned my family a long time ago. I'm a rent boy for heaven's sake, people don't bother blackmailing us."

He looks unimpressed. "Ms Backus tells me that you are considering a career change. Isn't it true that having your past revealed would make life very difficult for you in any new job?"

I snort sourly. "Any putative job would have to not care about that sort of thing in the first place. Even assuming that I didn't tell them at interview, if they did any checking into my background at all they'd find my police record." I manage to keep most of the sarcasm out of my voice.

"What if your employer merely insisted on discretion about your background? Would you not be susceptible to threats to divulge all about your former clients?"

I bristle at the renewed implication that Sam was a client, but it doesn't really matter. I've thought this through before, and there's only really one answer. Betraying Sam is just not an option. "No, I don't believe so. Jobs are easier to find than friends."

Malone looks frankly disbelieving, but lets the matter go. He returns instead to the events of the evening, grilling me hard about what I, a mere civilian, thought I was doing going into a situation like that.

"I suppose I wasn't thinking," I say reflectively. "I was breaking your number one rule and acting on my emotions. I knew anyone walking into that job wasn't likely to walk out again, and I couldn't let that happen."

He still wants to know why, so I explain about Tommy. To my distress, I find myself explaining all about Tommy, including my unannounced and unrequited love, in order to justify myself to this disapproving old dragon. It starts getting me angry, and that's something I know is stupid. Angry people say things they don't mean to.

"So you would do exactly the same if the circumstances repeated themselves?"

"Apart from trying not to get shot? Yeah. Oh, I'd try to get some backup organised earlier and not go all Lone Ranger if I could avoid it, but if it was a choice between watching that and preventing it I'd act. Wouldn't you?" I might as well try a small offensive of my own.

"No, Mr Thurlow, I would not. Not if delay meant a greater likelihood of the mission succeeding."

I look at him as if he had grown horns. "Your mission had already succeeded," I say coldly. "Declan was identified. My mission was to get Chris out intact, and delay would have compromised that."

"You realise that you were more likely to be captured and killed than to succeed in extracting Mr Keel."

"Yeah. But stopping Declan for two minutes was all that I needed to do so that your team could get there. At the very worst I reckon I could have kept talking that long."

"You were very, very lucky, Mr Thurlow."

I have no reply to that. We stare at each other in undisguised hostility for a moment, then Malone switches subjects to Sam and Chris. How do I believe they are coping, what reactions have I seen, and so on. This is crunch time for not talking about their lack of relationship, but I've still got to play Mr Angry for a while yet or he'll get suspicious.

"To be honest, you're in a better position to observe that than I am," I say coldly. "I haven't seen them for more than an hour or so since I got shot, and I was on fairly serious painkillers for much of that time." Meaning do your own psychological dirty work, damn you.

Malone doesn't take the hint, unsurprisingly. "On the other hand, you have seen them while they aren't playing at being macho men for my benefit."

I could point out that he's quite sharp enough to see through such a charade, but he'll keep on circling round until he gets me to open up. I might as well talk while I still have some manoeuvring room. "They don't seem entirely comfortable with each other," I say grumpily, "but that'll go away in time."

"So they should be separated for a while?"

"Fuck no! Um, pardon my French. They need to relearn that they aren't a threat to each other. For that they need to be together, not apart."

"Explain."

"I'd have thought it was pretty bloody obvious. If I hadn't intervened, Sam was going to be forced to rape Chris. Intellectually, they know it's over and done with, nothing happened and nothing is going to happen. Emotionally, they still have a lot of subconscious, prime quality panicking to do."

Malone sits back at that. Evidently that little titbit hadn't made it into their report. I shouldn't be surprised; I've been suppressing it whenever I've talked to anyone else, but their boss needs to know, damn it. He needs to understand just how hard he can't push them right now.

"You seem very sure of yourself for someone without a psychology degree, Mr Thurlow."

"I watch. I listen. It's not exactly rocket science."

I actually get a small smile for that. "I have several specialists who would disagree with you most strongly. Still, do you believe it will have a long term effect on them?"

"Everything has a long term effect on everyone, but I'm really out of my depth here. I'd expect them to be a bit jumpy around each other, like they are, until they work things out. After that..." I shrug. "Who knows, their working relationship may even strengthen."

"And their rapport with each other?"

I shrug again. "I've only ever seen them together professionally, so I'm not even going to try and guess on that one."

"I cannot believe that in all your conversations, Mr Curtis did not mention Mr Keel."

"Sam was very careful about discussing anything related to his work, for reasons that are now obvious. His partner counted as work. He thought they worked well together despite being about as different as possible, but that's as far as we talked."

"Weren't you curious?"

"Very. But Sam was discreet. And after a while, amazing as it may seem, I did learn when to not ask questions."

After that I seem to be home free, though I'm careful not to relax or show any relief on my face. Malone just goes through the sequence of events once again, making sure that he has all the details from me. I answer with increasing surliness, since I am still aching slightly from the physio. He tries a final admonishment before leaving; "You have been exceptionally lucky, Mr Thurlow. Do try not to get involved in matters for which you are untrained in the future."

"You could argue that the same applies to your agents, sir. I am rather better qualified than Chris for the activities that he undertook. Perhaps we should swap, next time." I smile sweetly. It's true; I have been training to disregard rape ever since I started working the streets, in a manner of speaking.

Malone's response is a frosty "Don't be cheeky," that actually does make me feel like I've been given a major bollocking, but I hang on to my pain and irritation to keep staring levelly at him. "I will be in contact if I have any more questions," he says, finally. "Good day, Mr Thurlow."

I wait until he's out of the door and lie back on my bed. I need to rest a while, but I make myself wait thirty seconds more in case the bastard is hiding by the door before I properly relax and start shivering. That was hard work. I've been grilled good and proper, and the effort of holding stuff back is beginning to tell on me. On the positive side, I'm reasonably sure I didn't give away anything that really matters.

For a change, I get an afternoon without visitors. It's a relief, actually, just to be able to rest and do my own thing without feeling that I'm having to entertain or graciously accept sympathy or whatever. Best of all, I've got lots of reading matter to keep my mind off me. I actually get most of the way through the Dumas before Sam and Chris appear in the evening.

The difference in the two of them is so obvious it's almost painful. They are standing so close that they're all but holding hands, and their smiles are easy and genuine. They've talked. At bloody last. I grin broadly back at them, pushing the pain and emptiness at what never could have been into a small box that they are never, ever going to see.

"I love it when a plan comes together."

Chris looks at Sam wryly. "Told you he'd notice."

"You go from keeping your distance to needing a crowbar to pry the two of you apart. What's a boy supposed to think? I'm just glad that you've finally got yourselves together." I am, too, they fit each other so well. It's about the only reason I'm not crying right now.

"Actually," Sam says, "we mostly came to say thank you for that. If you hadn't pushed so hard, we might have carried on not admitting it for months."

"Yeah, we can't all be as up-front as you are." Chris' grin takes the sting out of his words.

"What, innocent little me?" I try for my very best choirboy look, rather spoiled by the fluttering eyelashes. It gets the laugh I was aiming for anyway, which makes me absurdly pleased. Maybe I'll get through this conversation alive after all.

That reminds me that there are still confessions to be made. Oh, not my feelings, they're never going to find out about those, but one or two other little matters that I'd rather didn't lie around like a land mine in their relationship.

"Er, Chris, did Sam tell you that we weren't completely honest with you about how we met?"

Chris gives me a cock-eyed look, slightly scared, slightly threatening.

"Don't worry, I wasn't lying when I said we hadn't had sex."

Sam takes over. "I actually first called Danny a few weeks earlier than I said we met. I picked him at random out of the ads in the phone box. I needed to know what to do, in case you felt the same way that I did. I didn't want to be fumbling when we... you know."

"You weren't, Sam. Boy, were you ever not."

"But when it came to the crunch with Danny, I couldn't..."

"You had issues," I finish for him. "Specifically, I wasn't you, Chris. So we talked instead." I shrug. "I had to get past his inhibitions somehow. I didn't intend to become a friend as well as a tutor in erotica, that just happened."

Chris has relaxed again. "Looks like you did both pretty well," he says with a satisfied smirk, squeezing Sam's shoulders. It's Sam's turn to blush now, and he does it very prettily too. It makes me want to both laugh and cry, watching Chris' smirk turn into a smile of unadulterated mushiness. There is a moment of quiet as they luxuriate in their love and I introspect more than is good for me.

I get myself back under control reasonably quickly, so I'm the one who breaks the silence. It's frankly rather embarrassing.

"Um, would your gratitude extend to some advice? Only I have to find a proper job for myself now, and I don't know where to start."

"Huh? How come?"

"It's just... I dunno, being stuck here started me thinking about time and mortality and all that crap, and I just wanted something more permanent than doing what I do. Even if I don't know what I want to do. It's just... it's just time to move on. I can't put it any better than that."

Sam and Chris actually look sheepish.

"I never actually had to go job-hunting," Sam admits. "I was recruited straight out of university, so I've got no more idea than you. Even my holiday work shelf-stacking in the supermarket came about because of a friend."

"Same here. My family had it all mapped out for me, from high school to Naval Academy. Sorry, Danny, that's no help at all. What sort of things can you do?"

"That's the problem, I'm not exactly skilled at anything other than making love," a statement that for some reason gets a snort of disbelief from Sam, "and I'm not over-endowed with qualifications either. I skipped out of GCSEs."

"Couldn't stand school?" Sam asks sympathetically.

"Couldn't stand home. I vaguely thought of working in a library or a gym club, I know my locals fairly well. Hell, if the worst comes to the worst there's always factory work."

"It would have you climbing the walls in under a week," Sam says, and I have to admit he's right. I'd be bored to tears with a mindlessly repetitive job.

Chris snaps his fingers. "Sam, doesn't your father run a gym club?"

Sam looks almost embarrassed. "Technically it's a boxing club, but there's a lot of fitness training on the side. There's just one catch; Dad's not exactly open to the concept of alternative lifestyles."

It's Chris' turn to look embarrassed. "Ah. Yeah, maybe not the smartest of moves."

"I could put a word in for you with him if you like. I could try my local gym too, but I don't know the manager that well."

"Thanks. Whether it works out or not, I appreciate what you're doing for me."

"It's the least we could do," Sam says with a grin.

"Yeah, if Malone says you're officially OK he won't object to us pulling a string or two for saving our butts," Chris adds.

"Mr Malone thinks I'm OK?" I ask, as Sam glowers at Chris over his choice of words. "I thought he was halfway to slapping me one when he left."

"Sounds like every time Chris steps into his office," Sam says, and gets a glare from Chris in return. They're as bad as kids, playing round me.

"That reminds me though, you'll need to watch out around Mr Malone. I'm sure he thinks something is up between the two of you, the way he more or less interrogated me this morning. I almost preferred being shot."

"More than thinks, I hope," Sam says, "since we told him first thing." I stare at him like he'd grown another head. "There was no way we were going to be able to keep it from him forever, and I thought the sooner we told him the less angry he'd be about it." Judging from their glances, this business is still a bone of contention between them.

"I still think we were bloody lucky to get away with just a lecture," Chris insists. "He could have demanded our resignations you know."

"He did the sensible thing, upping the frequency of our reviews and ordering us to be discreet. All modesty aside, you know we're too good to throw away like that."

I'm still puzzled by Malone's behaviour. "Maybe that's what he was after, trying to find out how discreet you were." I shake my head. "At least Tina will be relieved."

Chris splutters, and even Sam looks alarmed. "Backup knows?"

I can't help smirking. "She thought you'd been doing the dirty for months. She was the one who warned me Mr Malone was on the warpath."

"How come everyone knew except me?!" Chris grumbles.

"Us." Sam is similarly nonplussed. "Were we really so obvious?"

"Must be natural talent," I suggest, and then the penny drops about what Malone was really doing.

"Bastard!" I shout. "Malone was testing me. He was trying to get me to admit that you were together. He even suggested splitting you up just to see what I'd say. The utter, utter bastard!"

"That's our boss," Chris says with a grin. "Now you see why we love him so much."

Sam looks more sympathetic, even if not by much. "For what it's worth, I reckon you passed. It's not like Malone has been bellowing for your blood or anything." He looks back at Chris for support.

"Yeah, he said that you were doing quite adequately. That's high praise from Malone."

"Oh yes," says Sam dryly, "we aspire to the heights of adequacy."

"He also said you were cheeky," Chris adds with a twinkle in his eye, "but he said it like it was a bad thing."

Nurse Forster chooses this moment to poke her head around the door and stare disapprovingly at my guests. They shouldn't feel singled out, I haven't seen her look at anyone any other way, doctors included. "Mr Curtis? There's a phone call for you from a Mr Spencer."

Sam sighs, and follows her out to wherever they've hidden the phones. "Work?" I ask Chris idly.

"Yeah, and Spence will be a bit pissed because our mobiles are off."

"It never rains but it pours." There is a pause, then "Chris, the two of you are all right, aren't you? You know Sam has... issues."

"Yeah, I know. We'll tackle them, when it's time." He sounds so quietly determined, I know they'll make it. It breaks my heart all over again.

"Just so you know, if I can ever do anything for you, either of you, just call. You guys are... you changed my life."

"No, Danny, you did that all by yourself," Chris says with a gentle smile. "You did the right thing. It seems to be in your nature. And besides, you're the one who changed our lives."

"You'd have done that yourselves, in time."

"Would we?"

"Yes." I surprise myself with how confident I sound. I don't feel confident. I feel lonely, and all my hazy plans for the future are only going to take me further from the people I know. "I wish I had the sort of skills CI5 needs."

"You'd seriously wish for a life of getting shot at, stabbed up, run off the road and generally blamed for everything that goes wrong?"

"Oh, like anything would make you give it up." We share a quick smile, then Chris grows serious.

"It's a shitty life, Danny. You never know what's happening next or whether you'll live to the end of the week. You're much better off out of it."

"Maybe, but someone's got to do it, and I'm glad there are people like you and Sam who will."

Whatever Chris was going to say is cut off by Sam's reappearance. "C'mon, there's been a kidnapping. Malone wants us on the job pronto."

"I'm with you." Chris pauses at the door. "We'll see you round, Danny. You're one of the best, and don't you forget it."

Then they're gone. Two of the best friends a man could have. Much as it hurts me to say so, I hope they get to savour their love. What was it Chris said? It's in my nature to do the right thing? Maybe it is, sometimes. It's a comfort.

A cold, cold comfort.


End file.
